By IANS,
Colombo : Two Indians have been remanded to judicial custody by a court here for collecting nearly Rs.7 million from over 50 Sri Lankan students and allegedly deceiving them with the promise of awarding a Cambridge University certificate after completion of a computer course.
The Colombo City Police were conducting the investigation into the racket, based on a complaint made by one of the affected Sri Lankan students. The two suspects were produced Monday before the Colombo Magistrate Court, a media report here said.
The affected student, living in the outskirts of Colombo, has claimed that through newspaper advertisements a university called ‘Advance Cine Matrix’, housed at No. 281/1, R.A. De Mel Mawatha, Colombo, had assured a Cambridge University certificate to the students on completion of a three dimensional graphic computer degree course.
The student claimed that he paid the prescribed fee and joined the university and after a lapse of time another batch of students had also joined.
“They (the two Indians) had fraudulently used several names like Impulse Animation Colombo (Pvt) Ltd, Frammie Box and Advanced Cine Matrix for the alleged university to dupe the students and had attempted to close down the university and leave the country,” the local Daily Mirror newspaper reported Tuesday.
The police have told the court Monday that their investigations so far have revealed that the suspects had collected Rs.6,090,875 as registration and tuition fees from over fifty students, it said.
With the police objecting to the bail application and demanding more time to complete ongoing investigations, the Colombo magistrate has ordered the suspects to be remanded till Aug 21.
The ‘Advance Cine Matrix’ is believed to be a Board of Investment (BOI) approved Information Technology Company registered in 2007.
An Indian High Commission official here said that the mission was yet to be informed about the reported fraud case involving the two Indians.