42-year-old held from Gurugram over alleged student visa fraud

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Peroorkada police have arrested a 42-year-old man from Gurugram in connection with an alleged student visa fraud. Elisa Thankarajan, a native of Neyyattinkara, is alleged to have swindled crores of rupees from people by promising education visas to European countries.  

He recently changed his name to T S Roger to escape from the police and the complainants. The police said the accused, who owns an institution ‘Alpha Mary International’ functioning at Thampanoor and Pattom, promised the applicants to issue a European visa online. It is when both the offices were found to be closed for some time and the accused was unreachable over the phone, the applicants decided to go ahead with the complaint. 

“In April, we received a complaint against the institution and the Pattom office was sealed. He has been absconding since then. About 20 complaints were received at Peroorkada station alone and five cases were registered. There are many complaints registered at different police stations in the state as the applicants are from various districts. The accused collected documents from the applicants and demanded a minimum of Rs 20 lakh from each applicant.

He landed in the police net over a Whatsapp communication operation. We found that he was running a similar institution in Gurugram as well,” said Azad Abdul Kalam, Peroorkada inspector of police. The accused was produced before a magistrate in Gurugram. He would be brought to Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday after securing a transit warrant.