67-year-old Tamil Nadu man arrested for cheating 5-star hotels since 1996: Report

The complaint was filed by the manager of a luxury hotel in Manipal. (Representational image)

A 67-year-old man from Tamil Nadu has been arrested for cheating a five-star hotel in Karnataka of about Rs 40,000. According to the police, Bimsent John has been staying in luxury hotels and fleeing without paying the bills since 1996. He has 49 cases registered against him in different police stations across the country and has even been in jail for five years for a similar offense, local media reported.

The Thoothukudi resident had booked a room at a hotel in Manipal on December 7 after promising to clear the bills in advance on December 9 before checking out on December 12. He claimed he had a conference to attend but after accumulating a bill of Rs 39,298, Bimsent fled.

The hotel manager, Nithin, filed a complaint against him and the police managed to arrest Bimsent on Wednesday. Investigations revealed that he had cheated many hotels in Kollam, Thane, and Delhi. He was produced at court and remanded to judicial custody for 14 days.

In a similar incident earlier this year, a woman was arrested for cheating a luxury hotel in Delhi's Aerocity of around Rs 6 lakh. The police discovered that she had only Rs 41 in her account. They said the Andhra Pradesh-based woman's motive behind staying near the airport could not be ascertained.

Jhansi Rani Samuel stayed in the Pullman Hotel located in Aerocity near the Delhi airport for 15 days and allegedly made fraudulent transactions worth around Rs 5,88,176, the police said.

The hotel staff told the police that she had produced a fake identity card of one Isha Dave at the hotel's spa facility and availed services worth Rs 2,11,708, the official said. The police said Samuel showed the hotel staff she was making the transactions on the ICICI Bank UPI app, but upon payment reconciliation, it was discovered that the bank had not received any payment.