The Puthencruz police have arrested a man accused of cheating people by promising jobs abroad. The arrested was identified as Subhash M. Varghese, 48, of Odakkali. The alleged fraud was carried out between August 2024 and April 2025 through a recruitment agency that he ran at Kolencherry.
According to the police, the accused allegedly pulled off the fraud through impersonation by using the Aadhaar card and address of a person from Kozhikode. He also allegedly misused the account number of a job applicant who approached his firm and conducted the transactions through it. Reportedly, he collected money from all the victims by promising to issue their visas by April 2025. He then allegedly shut down his firm and went into hiding.
The Puthencruz police managed to track him down despite the misleading address. He used to travel by bus alone to avoid detection. He slipped out of his rented house at Vengola one night after realising that the police had launched a probe. Since then, he had been living with his family at Thiruvilwamala in Palakkad. The police said that he was the key accused in the 2009 Ajaz murder case and had been imprisoned till 2018.
A team led by Puthencruz DySP V.T. Shajan and Inspector N. Gireesh made the arrest.
Published – July 01, 2025 08:59 pm IST