After asking the businessman to invest Rs 6 lakh in an event that he organised, the Tamil film director P Ravikumar said he would double the amount
A Tamil film director, who duped a businessman of Rs 6 lakh, saying he could double his money, was arrested on Monday. Filmmaker P Ravikumar and his two associates — V N Natrajan and A Periyaswami — were arrested at a hotel in Grant Road on Monday.
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The complainant Balaji Nadar (29), who owns a courier company, said, in his statement, that he was introduced to Ravikumar (38) through his friend Selvan Kodar (37), who is the director’s bodyguard.
In April 2014, Nadar attended an event in Dharavi, where he saw Ravikumar donate Rs 25 lakh to a cause. After a few days, Kodar told Nadar to meet the filmmaker at a hotel he was visiting in Juhu. At the meeting, the director was accompanied by his associates, Natrajan (43) and Periyaswami (45).
Ravikumar then asked Nadar for some money for an event he was organising in Kullu Manali. He also said that he would return double the amount in a month. The businessman agreed and gave him Rs 3 lakh.
During May last year, Ravikumar invited Nadar to Kullu Manali for the event and asked him to get R3 lakh more. Nadar, along with Kodar, went there and gave him the money.
The filmmaker promised to pay him back after 10 days. After waiting for 10 days in Manali, Ravikumar asked him to go back to Mumbai and told him that he would pay him once he reached the city.
Ravikumar stopped answering Nadar’s calls for a year. The businessman approached Dharavi Police in June this year. Last week, Nadar came to know that Ravikumar was in Nashik and with the police’s help, he tracked the director to Mumbai, where he got him and his two associates arrested.
The businessman officially registered a complaint only on Monday. Nadar’s lawyer Manoj Gowd said, “Ravikumar has cheated a lot of people this way in various states and they are now coming forward after his arrest. He operates the same way.
First, he gains trust by issuing fake donation cheques and then asks people to invest in events of his films promising to double their money.”