A dismissed Indian Railway Traffic Service (IRTS) officer, accused of duping two city-based businessmen of over Rs 1.30 crore, was arrested from Chennai on Friday after a lookout notice (LOC) was issued against him, a police CID press release said.

At the Hyderabad police's request, Sowmya Ranjan Mahapatra was detained by immigration authorities at Chennai airport three days ago, when he landed from Singapore. Mahapatra, used to work with the South Central Railway (SCR) for some time in 2004 before being transferred to the South West Central Railway at Hubli. After allegations of misconduct and corruption, he was removed from service, a CID press release said. While Mahapatra worked with SCR, Secunderabad, he used to claim that he was well connected with people in powerful positions, and used to drop names of some IAS and IPS officers.

Claiming that they could make huge money in a short time, he used to lure businessmen to join his business, leading them to believe that he was trading in iron ore, the police said. He allegedly lured Nasaraju of Saidabad, as well as Venugopal of Gandhinagar areas, collecting Rs 70 lakhs and Rs 62 lakhs from them respectively. Later, he began evading them. When Narsaraju pressed him to return his money, Mahapatra allegedly sent his partners to forcibly collect the business agreement papers, promissory notes and other documents from him and threatened to kill him if he approaches the police, the release said. When he was found absconding, the police suspected that he left the country by air and issued a look out notice.

After receiving the information from the Chennai airport, the Tukaramgate police from Hyderabad took him into custody from the Chennai airport authorities, brought him to the city, where he was remanded to judicial custody after he was produced before a court, the release said.