Honeytrap: IAS aspirant loses gold

Chennai: Police have arrested an engineer and launched a hunt for his wife on the charge of cheating a 25-year-old IAS aspirant and stealing 65 sovereigns of gold jewellery worth 16 lakh from his house in Adyar in May. Police nabbed the suspect, Venkatramanan, on Thursday.
A team from the Adyar police, led by assistant commissioner Asokan and inspector Sivakumar, raided the residence of the accused at Red Hills and recovered 45 sovereigns of stolen jewellery.The Adyar police registered a case, based on a complaint by Jagadeeshwaran of Indira Nagar, Adyar.
As per preliminary investigations, Jagadeeshwaran saw Venkatramanan's ‘dating post' on a website and he responded to it. Jagadeeshwaran, in due course, invited Venkatramanan and his wife Sindhuja home.
As Sindhuja chatted up with Jagadeeshwaran in the hall, Venkatramanan slipped into the rooms and stole the valuables, police said. After a while, Sindhuja feigned stomach ache and Venkatramanan took her to a nearby hospital. Jagadeeshwaran realised that he was conned after finding the valuables missing.
Police said they arrested him using a decoy ‘customer.' Police responded to a post by Venkatramanan wherein he offered a ‘date with his wife.' Plainclothes policemen nabbed the accused as Venkatramanan turned up at the ‘appointed venue' with Sindhuja. Police said Sindhuja managed to slip away.
Inquiries revealed that Venkatramanan and his wife had cheated many people, including several businessmen, in Tambaram, Chromepet, Koyambedu, J J Nagar, Velachery, and Maduravoyal using the honeytrap. Police said they were expecting complaints from more people against the couple. "Many people were reluctant to approach police fearing it could spoil their reputation," an officer said.
Venkatramanan told police officers that he wanted money to fund his wife's higher studies.
Venkatramanan met Sindhuja when they were employed in a software company in Hyderabad. They got married a few months ago and stayed in a rented house in Red Hills. Venkatramanan and Sindhuja searched for jobs in the city. Whentheir search ended in vain, they devised this plan to cheat people, officers said.