Kerala's cheated investors threaten suicide

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Investors cheated by 20-year-old "master swindler" Sabarinath on Saturday threatened to commit suicide in front of the state secretariat if the Kerala government did not speed up police investigations into the Rs.5 billion scam.

Members of the Action Council Forum formed by cheated investors said that the investigation was not progressing because influential political personalities were interfereing in it.

Suicide will be their last resort but they would wait for some more time, they said.

The Crime Branch of the police has so far arrested four people: Sabarinath, his father, his manager Bindu Mahesh and a Dhanalekshmi Bank official.

Another four accused, including Chandramathy, a senior official of the state-owned SIDCO, are absconding.

Sabarinath, who studied up to Class 12, fell out with his parents when they refused to give him money to start his business. He began as a financial consultant with a life insurance company and launched his firm Total4U 18 months ago.

He used to offer a return of Rs.60,000 on an investment of Rs.100,000 for three months. With high returns and prompt payments, he won the confidence of many and his client base increased.

However, people stopped getting any payments from him last month and Sabarinath fled towards the end of August.

The police have also seized more than a dozen luxury cars including a brand new BMW that Sabarinath had gifted to his girlfriend.