At the height of Lok Sabha elections in April last year, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers in Kerala were busy engaging with residents in some districts, giving publicity to many of the Union government schemes. One was a 'Two-Wheelers for Half Price' scheme that promised to deliver two-wheelers at half the cost, as it was subsidised by Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds. It quickly caught the people’s fancy. It was not just two-wheelers; it was laptops, sewing machines, water purifiers, and more, available for half price under the scheme. Even sceptics turned into believers when the endorsement of the scheme was no longer confined to BJP workers. Soon, leaders from various political parties like the Kerala Education Minister V Sivankutty, Leader of Opposition VD Satheesan, Congress MP Hibi Eden and even police officers participated in promotional events to popularise it. And thousands of people began signing up.
It took several months for people to realise that their money was lost and they were the victims of an elaborate Ponzi scheme. While most of them were duped, a few did receive benefits, adding to the illusion of authenticity. The first of the complaints was filed in November and then they started coming in rapidly across districts. On January 31, the Muvattupuzha police arrested 28-year-old Ananthu Krishnan from Choorakulagara in Idukki district.
TNM looks into how Ananthu devised a ‘scheme’ that ended up defrauding thousands of Keralites and how it rapidly unravelled into a scam that police estimate could amount to a loss of Rs 2,000 crores. At the core of it is a confederation of NGOs, a successful businessman turned philanthropist, a young con artist and his three companies.
How it started
Ananthu Krishnan, who hails from the Idukki district of Kerala, ran three consulting agencies named Grassroot Innovision (OPC) Private Limited, Professional Service Innovations, and Social Bee Ventures. In 2023, he mooted an idea to the National NGO Confederation (NNC), of which he was a national coordinator. The idea was simple. People would pay 50% of a commodity like a bike or a laptop; the rest would be donated by companies through their CSR funds. What no one questioned was the unbridled power that Ananthu Krishnan had in NNC and that the money for the commodities was being paid to the three private agencies he owned and not to the NNC directly.
