HYDERABAD: Four persons, including the chairperson of an NGO and her husband, were on Saturday arrested for duping 2,700 people, from whom they allegedly collected `8.10 crore. The accused promised to build them houses, and asked them to pay an advance amount to the NGO.

As part of the accused’s plan to lure victims — who hailed from the erstwhile Nalgonda, Medak and Warangal districts — they even held a public meeting with a famous folk singer.Those arrested were Konda Krishnamma, her husband Konda Ramesh, and relatives Konda Venkata Narayana and Katta Mahendranath Tagore. Two other accused persons are at large.

According to the police, Krishnamma conceived the idea of collecting money from people by promising to build them houses, and floated the Malyavi Karunodaya Society for People of Old Age and Physically Handicapped at Saroor Nagar in Hyderabad. She then hired coordinators from each mandal in the erstwhile Warangal, Nalgonda and Medak districts to enrol as many people as possible.

People who wanted houses had to pay `30,000 as advance for registration, and later `2.2 lakh, while the organisation promised to cover the remaining cost of `5 lakh.The accused initially built about 10 houses, and supplied construction material to several mandals. Seeing this, more people signed up. In this manner, the accused collected `8.10 crore since October, 2018, DCP (Bhongir) K Narayana Reddy said, adding that the police recovered `12.22 lakh in cash, besides gadgets, documents and incriminating evidence from those arrested. The accused collected the money only as cash, and did not accept any other modes of payment.

The scam came to light when one V Vijaya approached the police, saying that though she paid her advance amount six months ago, there was no progress.Krishnamma was earlier arrested for cheating unemployed women by promising them sewing machines.