Bengaluru: The masterminds behind criminal acts come up with ‘creative’ ways to tap their targets and in a rather shocking incident, the con men utilised the seat of the state legislature of Karnataka-Vidhana Soudha to execute their master plan of cheating some industrialists.

The lid was blown off the can of worms when a few industrialists from Tamil Nadu approached the Vidhana Soudha police against a group of persons who allegedly duped them of Rs 1.2 cr in the name of a loan under various schemes. When police continued the investigation they found that son of a former MLA and seven of his associates swiftly ran this racket, that too from the very corridors of Vidhana Soudha.

On Wednesday, police arrested all the eight, who have been identified as P Karthikeyan (60), a resident of Sheshadripura, his son Swaroop, their associates M Prabhu, Manikanta Vasan, KV Suman, R Abhilash, R Karthik, John Mohan.

Shocking Modus Operandi

What shocked the police was the modus operandi the Gang followed to cheat the industrialists. According to the police sources, P Karthikeyan and gang used the first floor of the Vidhana Soudha to lure clients and several Vidhana Soudha staff were paid well to play along so that the gang could convince its target of its influence and might.

Karthikeyan told the targets that he was a Minister and made away crores of rupees from the TN based industrialists.

“Four of the associates were acting like gunmen while another was working like a government document verification officer. They were also using the extra cars reserved for MLAs to ensure that industrialists believe them,” said sources adding that the accused were taking rest in the rooms allotted for the ministers in the Vidhana Soudha by paying a meagre Rs 1000 to the staff.

Most of the talks with the industrialists happened inside the rooms of the ministers.

“The gang was paying Rs 100 to the staff to salute them, every time they passed by in the corridors of Vidhana Soudha with the potential targets,” said the sources.