Model and Malayalam actress Dhanya Mary Varghese has been arrested for financial fraud worth Rs1.3 billion (Dh70 million), police said on Friday.
Dhanya Mary Varghese, her husband John, and his brother Samuel were on the run after complaints were filed by clients who had booked apartments from Samson Builders.
The company, owned by John’s family, failed to honour the contracts.
The actress’s father-in-law, Jacob Samson, a former state government employee, was arrested last month. The trio was arrested in Tamil Nadu on Thursday night and brought to Thiruvananthapuram on Friday.
According to police, Varghese had misled clients by stating on the company website that she was the director of Samson Builders.
Samson Builders was in the process of constructing apartments and villas and had collected around Rs1 billion from clients and another Rs300 million from investors offering high rates of returns.
For the past several months, clients were following up with the company and after several deadlines for handing over the apartments were missed, a number of clients filed a complaint with the police.
Dhanya Mary Varghese made her movie debut in the Tamil film Thirudi and later entered the Malayalam industry, where she has acted in popular films such as Nanma, Thalappavu, Vairam and Kerala Cafe.
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