Two held for fraud in the name of Pandalam royal family

KOCHI: A special investigation team of Kochi city police arrested a person and his accomplice who committed a fraud of crores of rupees by impersonating as a member of the royal family of Pandalam. 
Santhosh Karunakaran, 43, from Pathanamthitta, and his aide, Gopakumar G, 50, a native of Eroor in Kochi, were nabbed on charges of cheating a person who runs a software firm, OS Business Solutions, on Karshaka Road, Kadavantra, by sourcing the software source code costing Rs 26 crore by paying just Rs 15,000 in advance.

The accused won the trust of the owner by citing that Santhosh was a member of the Pandalam royal family and a supplier of equipment to the US Army, based in Kuwait.  “The accused also appointed 20 staffers of the firm at West Line Hytec India owned by Santhosh and did not pay any wages for their jobs for months. The police registered a case based on the complaint lodged by the software firm owner,” said an officer. The duo was arrested when they arrived in the city for surrendering before the police in a case registered by Infopark police as per High Court direction.

In this case, they cheated Ajit Mahapatra, a Kuwait-based businessman from Bhubaneswar, Odisha, and extracted Rs 6 crore after offering him a farming business in 2500 acres of land owned by Pandalam royal family at Nilgiris after buying the property, said police.