Bengaluru/Mangaluru, Jan 4: A prominent entrepreneur hailing from Mangaluru has been arrested by the Central Crime Branch (CCB) for allegedly duping people of at least Rs 100 crore after promising to build flats for them.
The arrested is Avinash Prabhu, managing director of Skyline Constructions and Housing Pvt Ltd and Kalmane Koffee, a coffee shop chain. The police have recovered a Range Rover and an Audi car from him.
Police commissioner T Suneel Kumar said, “Avinash and his brother Dhiraj Prabhu collected crores of rupees from people saying they were constructing apartments at Hennur, Horamavu, Yelahanka and Mangaluru but deceived them.”
Kumar said, “He used to take customers to the location, show them around and collect a sum in advance. A few days later, he would pretend that the construction had begun and would again collect a large chunk of money but finally abandon the buyers. He neither repaid nor constructed the apartment.”
Christopher Regal recently filed a complaint with Hennur police claiming to have been duped by Avinash. CCB too received several complaints in this regard, following which Kumar transferred the probe to CCB. Additional commissioner of police (crime) Alok Kumar said after tailing him for a week, Avinash was arrested from his office on Lavelle Road on Thursday. Police have frozen 15 of his bank accounts and have launched manhunt for Dhiraj.
Police said the probe revealed that Avinash had collected at least Rs 100 crore from 200 people and bought five acres of land in Kengeri, 3 acres in Allalasandra, 3 acres in Hennur, 7 acres in Kanakapura, 8.5 acres in Mangaluru, half an acre in Chennai and invested money in Kalmane Koffee, which has 11 outlets in Bengaluru. He also has properties outside Bengaluru.
The kidnapped schoolboy was rescued by the police and reunited with his parents. Son of a gift shop owner from Basavanagudi area in Bengaluru, Chirag has reportedly told police that decided to make some quick money to spend on cricket betting and gambling after learning kidnap tricks from the ‘Crime Patrol’. According to police, Chirag reached a private school around 3pm on Tuesday on a Bounce rental bike and zeroed in on a fourth standard student who was walking out of school. He told the boy he was his father's friend and that he required help to search for a relative who had gone missing. The boy believed Chirag and rode pillion on the bike. Chirag then engaged the boy in conversation and learnt about his father's business and got his mobile phone number. He then made a call to the boy's father, demanded Rs 5 lakh and warned him against approaching cops. However, the boy's father alerted Cottonpet police and special teams were formed to crack the case. While Cottonpet inspector Venkatesh TC's squad verified CCTV footage in and around the school, Chamarajpet inspector BG Kumaraswamy's team started tracking the suspect's mobile phone movements. An hour later, the suspect's location was traced to a hotel on the Lavelle Road-St Mark's Road stretch. Police rushed there, rescued the boy and arrested Chirag.
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Is he still in jail, or is he out on bail?
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