A young inventor, who made claims through the media that he had made a device to convert petrol vehicles to run on water as fuel, was remanded yesterday by Colombo Additional Magistrate Ravindra Premaratne, till October 28, for allegedly defrauding several people of their money by promising to venture into a lucrative business to manufacture the device.
The suspect, Mohotti Arachchilage Thushara Priyamal Edirisinghe of Athurugiriya, was arrested by the Kirulapone Police after investigation of a complaint by Dadallage Nalaka Silva on October 13, that the suspect had defrauded him of Rs. 1,104,693.72 by promising to start a business involving the conversion of petrol cars to water powered ones.
The complainant had come to know of the suspect through a news bulletin telecast over a private television channel regarding his invention of a device to enable petrol cars to run on water. The complainant had got the suspect’s telephone number from the television channel and contacted him. He had agreed to start a joint venture with the complainant on a 50-50 profit sharing basis.
Thereafter the suspect had collected the money from the complainant saying that he wanted to go to Singapore to buy equipment for the workshop. But he had not purchased any.
Police informed the magistrate that the suspect had defrauded another person, R.M. Tankathilaka of Athurugiriya, of Rs 160,000 and that investigations had revealed that he had defrauded several others as well.
Police moved to remand the suspect as the investigations were not concluded.
The magistrate remanded the suspect till October 28 and ordered Police to file their findings in court on that date.
