A court has granted police custody of the three accused till Oct 5
Kolhapur : Three of eight accused were arrested on Thursday in a case of alleged illegal money lending and extortion , in which over Rs 2.5 crore was purportedly recovered from a woman between Jan 2021 and Jan 2026 against a Rs 6-lakh loan she had borrowed to start a car battery dealership and sari business. A court has granted police custody of the three accused till Oct 5. Police said when More failed to repay the money with interest on time, the accused imposed a penalty of 200%, raising the liability to Rs 12 lakh.
We will also try to recover the proceeds from the accused,” inspector Ravindra Kalamkar said. Inspector Kalamkar said the case was registered after verification by Karvir police. Kolhapur police identified the arrested accused as Siddhesh Gaikwad, Ajinkya Jadhav and Swati Sinnur of Shivaji Peth, who were running an illegal money-lending racket. “Gaikwad and Jadhav were arrested from Pune, Sinnur was apprehended in Kolhapur. We will investigate how the money extorted through private money lending was utilised. Police further alleged that the eight accused conspired to conduct illegal money-lending operations and executed notarised agreements on stamp papers to facilitate recoveries through jewellery, cheques and ATM cards.
A case has been registered under relevant provisions of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023, and Maharashtra Money-Lending Act, 2017.
During the investigation, police said, Gaikwad told them that the funds used for lending belonged to the other accused.