Fifty-two-year-old South Indian actor S Srinivasan, popularly known as ‘Power Star’, who acted in a dozen of Tamil films as comedian and produced four, was arrested by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Delhi Police for allegedly duping a city-based businessman of Rs 5 crore on the pretext of helping him in getting loans worth Rs 1,000 crore.
Investigation revealed that the actor had cheated nine other people of over Rs 20 crore, promising to secure loans for them and invested the amount in film production.
Additional Deputy Commissioner (EOW) Harendra Kumar Singh said that Srinivasan was arrested by Kilpauk police on Friday and was taken into custody by the Delhi Police.
"Srinivasan had approached the complainant's company, Blue Coast Infrastructure Development Pvt ltd in Delhi in 2010, and represented themselves as consultants who would help the businessman in getting a loan of Rs 1,000 crore," the officer added.
The actor, who shot to fame with the comedy flick Kanna laddu Thinna Aasiya, has now been sent to judicial custody in Tihar Jail. The complainant was taken to Chennai to meet the actor at his office, Baba Trading Company. As per condition, the complainant’s company had to make an upfront payment of Rs 5 crore. “The upfront payment of Rs 5 crore was proposed to be used by the lender (actor) for purchase of special adhesive stamp calculated at 0.50 per cent of the loan amount of Rs 1,000 crore," he said.
The company paid Rs 5crore by a bank draft towards the refundable processing fee and a loan agreement was entered into in December 2010 between Baba trading Company and the complainant’s company for disbursing a loan of Rs 1,000 crore on or before January 2011.