THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Taking a cue from Sabarinath, the city witnessed several small-time money swindlers, who managed to extract comparatively small amounts of money from investors following the ‘Total 4 U’ expose. While Sabarinath played big and swindled over Rs 200 crore from his investors, the amount swindled by the small-time swindlers ranged in just lakhs. A case registered with Vanchiyoor police station in the city a few months ago throws light on the prevalence of fraudulent schemes here. The cheat had coaxed his victims to invest money in gold ornaments pledged in new generation banks. The idea was to buy the gold ornaments when the banks put them for auction whenever the real owners failed to repay the loan. He convinced his victims that huge profit can be made by obtaining the ornaments through bidding and selling it for a higher price. Since the amount of gold involved is huge, the profit gained will be huge too, he managed to convince his investors.Unlike Sabarinath, the victims of small-time swindlers comprised young people, especially the frustrated youth, including students and professionals. However, the inevitable happened. After gaining the trust of his investors by returning handsome profits in the initial dealings, the swindler planned for one big deal in which he convinced his investors to invest maximum amounts so that they could seal off the business in style. After raising a sum of Rs 60 lakh, the swindler just vanished, leaving the investors in dire straits. Even though the victims filed a complaint before the police after waiting for months for his return, the investigation did not take off owing to the alleged connections the accused had in the Police Department.
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