Bengaluru | A couple hailing from Kerala and running a chit fund company in Bengaluru has fled after allegedly cheating more than 1,300 investors of over Rs 50 crore here, police said on Wednesday.

A majority of their investors are Keralites, they said.

The matter came to light after one of the investors, PT Savio, who claimed to have lost Rs 70 lakh in the scheme, approached the officials at the Ramamurthy Nagar police station on July 5, police said.

Based on the complaint, a case under Chit Funds Act, relevant section of the Banning of Unregulated Deposit Schemes Ordinance 2019, and sections 318 (cheating), 316 (criminal breach of trust) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita was registered against Tomy A and his wife Shini Tomy, proprietors of A&A Chit Funds and Finance in the Ramamurthy Nagar area in Bengaluru, police said.

Following his complaint, several investors came forward with complaints after they found that the firm's office was locked and the couple unreachable.

According to police, so far, they have received 265 formal complaints against the couple, who have settled in Bengaluru for a long time.

Citing a preliminary investigation, a senior police officer said that the couple had allegedly sold their apartment, switched off their phones, and disappeared. The couple reportedly started the business around 2005, had been collecting money through various deposit and chit schemes, promising high returns.

The operation continued for nearly two decades before collapsing recently, he said.

A manhunt has been launched to trace the accused, police said, adding that the true scale of the fraud could be much larger.