Mysuru:  A youth posed as a personal assistant to actor Puneeth Rajkumar and has managed to cheat several people to the tune of lakhs of rupees at Bannur village in T. Narsipur taluk.

The incident came to light after some of the victims came together to lodge a complaint in this regard yesterday. The youth, identified as Ravi from Srinivasapura near Bengaluru. While he was living in Bengaluru, he originally hailed from Ankanahalli village near Bannur. Recently, Ravi had come to Kupya village and had boasted that he worked as the personal assistant to the actor.

Falling for his smooth talk and deceit, some of the youths of the village requested Ravi to secure them jobs in Bengaluru and Ravi even promised that he had good contacts and will be able to easily get them lucrative jobs.

He also made new friends at the village and assured them to get jobs and introduce them to the ‘Power Star.’ Police said that Ravi’s open display of gold ornaments and his attitude made many in the village believe that he was indeed a big player in the Kannada film industry.

Soon, after convincing the village youth about the jobs and meeting Puneeth Rajkumar, Ravi demanded money from them as advance. He managed to secure money from one Girish and he then befriended Gurumurthy, a friend of Girish and assured him to get a driver’s job with the actor. He also befriended Ramesh and promised a job for his son with Puneeth Rajkumar. He took a gold chain worth Rs 1.5 lakh from one Uma, wife of Ramesh and he also took money from a couple of other youths.

Ravi allegedly collected gold valuables and money from several people and used the same to meet the marriage expenditure of his sister. Ravi, who went underground later, neither returned to the village nor kept his promise of getting jobs for them. When the victims themselves went to Bengaluru they learnt that he had deceived them in the name of the actor. Ravi had also switched off his mobile phone.

Realising that they were taken for a ride by Ravi, the villagers filed a complaint at T. Narsipur Police Station.