Tamil Nadu: Woman held for cheating people posing as collector’s assistant, husband on the run

Cases were registered under Section 419, 420 of the IPC and 66D of the IT Act

The Thanjavur cyber crime police arrested a woman who was an accomplice in crimes her husband committed over the past few years. The woman, identified as Rita Babilona (50), was arrested Tuesday in Tiruvallur district. Santhana Bharathy, the prime accused, is still on the run.

Speaking to indianexpress.com, Thanjavur District Collector Dinesh Ponraj Oliver said the man had been duping money from other people over some time. “He had collected money posing as a collector of Karur, Salem and was behind bars for some time and for his involvement in a bunch of cases of cheating. As soon as I came to know that a person had been collecting money posing as the collector’s PA, I immediately filed a complaint with police,” the collector said.

An FIR was lodged on July 19. Cases were registered under Section 419, 420 of the IPC and 66D of the IT Act. According to the FIR, the collector had claimed that he came to know that a man named Manimaran had been contacting several doctors in Thanjavur stating that he is the assistant to the collector and had been asking them to deposit money in a bank account.

Special teams were formed to nab the accused. The police intercepted the phone calls the accused made and found he had repeatedly contacted a number. On further investigation, it was revealed that the number belonged to Babilona who was residing at Veppampattu in Tiruvallur district. She was served a notice and was asked to appear before the Cyber Crime police on July 26.

According to police, Babilona confessed that she and her husband hatched plans to impersonate the Collector’s assistant. Babilona had said they had learnt that the Thanjavur district collector has a very good reputation and hence it would be easy to make people believe that the money they are sending is for a genuine cause. She said they wanted to make use of the pandemic and had learnt that many are voluntarily providing donations to Covid-19 relief funds. The woman said they had duped people in a similar fashion in several other districts as well.

She had said that they provided a bank account number of a woman who runs a beauty parlour in Coimbatore. Babilona said they made the woman believe that they belong to the film Industry and requested for her bank account to send her advance amount to put make up for some of the girls. She further confessed they got affluent people’s numbers through the phone directory and used multiple SIM cards to contact them.

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