Cherthala native dealer in antiques arrested for cheating people of Rs 10 crore

KOCHI: A dealer in antiques has been arrested here on the charge of cheating people of Rs 10 crore, police said on Sunday.
A native of Cherthala in Alappuzha district of Kerala, the dealer Monson Mavunkal was arrested on Sunday and remanded in judicial custody. He had borrowed the sum from several people by saying he needed money to clear some procedures to obtain Rs 26,260 crore from his bank account when there was no such account, the police official said.

Today, the official said, a raid was conducted on Mavunkal's museum of replicas he sold as antiques. Also, there were a few genuine antiques, but they were not expensive; and there were items actually made by a carpenter from Thiruvananthapuram, the police official said. A week ago, a few of the complainants approached the Chief Minister of the State Pinarayi Vijayan and told the latter that Mavunkal had cheated them of Rs 10 crore, the police official added.