Conman held for duping investors in Coimbatore

COIMBATORE: A 51-year-old man was arrested by police in Coimbatore on Thursday for conning hundreds of people out of several crores by promising high returns on investments.

The accused, Davidson alias Natarajan from Kanniyakumari, collected money from people across Coimbatore, promising high returns as well as free groceries. He floated several schemes to attract investments. Under one scheme, a person investing Rs 10,000 was promised free groceries worth Rs 250 every week. If the investor enrolled ten others within a month, the entire investment of Rs 10,000 would be returned.

In another scheme, investors were asked to deposit Rs ten every day and enrol two people daily. They were promised a reward of Rs one crore after 41 days. He also offered Rs 30,000 to those investing Rs one lakh and promised to return the principal if they recruited others to the scheme.

A cop privy to the investigation said more than 1000 people had invested over Rs seven crore. “However, after collecting the money, Davidson failed to provide either the promised returns or free commodities. When the investors contacted him, he allegedly failed to give a satisfactory response,” police said.

Soon, they also found the office locked, following which the investors realised that they had been duped and lodged a complaint with Kattoor police.

The police have appealed to the investors to approach the police with supporting documents for further investigation.