24-05-2025
Man held on charge of impersonating ED official
A man was arrested by the Kunnathunadu police on the charge of impersonating an Enforcement Directorate (ED) official and cheating a person to the tune of over ₹27 lakh.
The arrested man was identified as Ananthu Krishnan, 27, of Edakochi. A gang, including the accused, had allegedly cheated the petitioner by threatening him over mobile phone and the social media platform Skype, claiming that a courier in his name had been intercepted with five passports, a laptop, bank documents, and 400 grams of MDMA.
When the petitioner said he had no clue about such a courier, he was allegedly told that it was probably a case of identity theft. The accused then procured the petitioner's Aadhaar card number under the pretext of getting him off the hook.
Later, members of the racket reportedly reached out to him in the guise of ED officials and demanded money. The petitioner allegedly transferred ₹27.49 lakh from his two accounts to various accounts of the fraudsters.
During the course of the investigation, the police tracked the movement of the money to various accounts. One such transfer was traced to Ananthu Krishnan's bank account in Palluruthy. He was thus summoned for evidence collection, and during the interrogation, he was found to be part of the racket, the police said. A team formed by District Police Chief (Ernakulam Rural) M. Hemalatha made the arrest.
