UP: Police bust loan scam; 1 held, 7 on the run

LUCKNOW: The UP police claimed to have busted a multi-crore loan scam with the arrest of its mastermind. Kartikeyan alias Jignesh, the accused, was nabbed from Chennai by a team of Auraiya police on Thursday.
Police have said that seven of his aides are on the run.
The accused had formed a fake finance company without getting permission from the Reserve Bank of India and used it to dupe people on the pretext of providing them loan at cheaper interest rates across the country.
The Auraiya police began to work upon the case after one Brijesh Kumar, a doctor by profession, filed a case at the Dibiyapur police station on January 17.
Kumar alleged that he was duped of Rs 32 lakh on the pretext of providing loan for construction of his clinic by Kartikeyan.
Police had also recovered documents of 50 others from across the country who had taken loan from Jignesh.
Explaining the modus-operandi, SP (Auraiya) Triveni Singh said that the accused gave advertisement in prominant national dailies claiming to provide loans without collateral security interest at 5% less than normal rate of interest.
“Once the gullible approached him, Kartikeyan along with his aides used to make a visit in person. In the case of Brijesh, after the visit, he was assured a sum of Rs 10 crore. But before sanctioning the loan, Brijesh was asked to give Rs 2 lakh for field visit by experts, then Rs 5 lakh for document verification from court like title deed clearance, assets and liabilities valuation and appraisal. Then three months' interest amount was to be paid on total project loan sanctioned in advance. As a result, Brijesh had to shell-out Rs 32 lakh,” added Singh.
Brijesh, after paying the amount, did not get a draft of Rs 10 crore as assured by Kartikeyan, he stated in his complaint to the police. Later, he approached the police.
50 similar cases have come to the fore and efforts are on to trace his associates, said the police.