Rice puller deal: 3 held for duping vegetable vendor.

Accused sells metal to Angamaly native at ₹20 lakh After multi-level marketing schemes and online frauds, ‘rice pulling’ seems to be the way for tricksters to relieve unsuspecting individuals of their material wealth. Four days after the Kalady police arrested a native of Andhra Pradesh on the charge of swindling several lakhs of rupees by deploying the trick, the Ernakulam rural police have unearthed yet another instance of rice puller fraud, this time from North Paravur. In the latest instance, the police arrested three persons, who allegedly duped a vegetable vendor from Angamaly of ₹20 lakh by selling off the ‘magic metal’. The arrested are Vishnu Reddy, Nagaraj, and Syed, all hailing from Udumalaipettai in Tirupur district of Tamil Nadu. According to the police, the accused got acquainted with the victim, Tomy, through one Saravanan, a vegetable dealer from Tamil Nadu. They lured Tomy into buying the rice puller, an alloy of copper and iridium, which is claimed to be used by foreign agencies including NASA in space satellites for generating energy. “They managed to convince Tomy that the metal, also prized as a cure-all, would bring prosperity to his business and family and sold it to him at the Paravur market at ₹20 lakh,” officials said. The accused have been booked under IPC Section 420 for cheating and were sent to judicial custody. The police are also investigating whether more people have been cheated.