26 January,2011 06:54 AM IST | | Manjunath L Hanji
It was a dispute among the three accused that led to their arrest
With the arrest of four persons, the police have unearthed a money-laundering racket, and have recovered documents, and stamp papers worth Rs 2 crore. Ironically, it was a dispute among the four that led to their arrest The main accused, Govindaraju had a provision shop in KG Nagar, and was allegedly lending money to people on a monthly low interest rate. This business ran so smoothly that Kumar shut the provision store, and started giving loans full time. His old business helped him get sufficient clients.
Money back guarantee: Govindaraju amassed property papers of
several hawkers, businessmen and producers worth about Rs 2 crore
Govindaraju then joined hands with his friends Harish, Satish and Chandrakumar who invested Rs 5 lakh each and started providing loans to businessmen on a weekly interest rate, which was around 15 per cent.
Soon, the friends had enough capital to lend money to producers, and started doing so at a 20 per cent interest rate. If anyone failed to pay up on time, they would charge double the interest. Soon, the business spiralled, and they started lending money to high-profile parties, keeping their properties as collateral.
In November last year, Govindaraju cut ties with his partners, which led to a dispute among them. Govindaraju now moved on to extortion, and hired a few youth.
If anyone failed to return the money within the stipulated time, he would send his goons to threaten them. In this way, he earned over Rs 50 lakh by this business and amassed property papers of 50 hawkers, businessmen and producers.
This irked his ex partners, and they tried to stop him, since the police was already investigating him based on other complaints, and arrested him yesterday. During the investigation, he named his other partners, and they were arrested too.
ACP SH Duggappa said, "They had invested over Rs 2 crore, and have been doing this business for the past two years. We are still investigating."
