A young couple were arrested on Tuesday on the charge of duping over 30 people of nearly Rs 1.5 crore.

“Chittaranjan Roy, 30, and wife Chandrani had cheated people by falsely promising to make them franchisees of a reputable multinational company that had forayed into laundry services recently,” said an officer of Shakespeare Sarani police station.

The police said Chittaranjan had floated a company called NYCER Commodities with Chandrani as one of the directors. The couple had also allegedly cheated the owner of an office on the 13th floor of Chatterjee International building, which they had taken on rent.

“Over the past few months, Chittaranjan had lured many people by offering a franchise and collected lakhs from each. He asked the candidates to identify space for setting up an outlet and leave the rest to him,” the officer said. The police are probing whether Chittaranjan had himself bagged a franchise from the company.

Chittaranjan, originally from West Midnapore, lived in the Gariahat area but went missing with his wife and child a few months back after some of his victims realised that they had been tricked and started looking for him.

“The couple had rented the office space for Rs 65,000 a month. After using the office for some months, Chittaranjan handed the owner, Arun Kumar Karnany, a cheque for Rs 3 lakh, which bounced,” said an officer.

The police said Chittaranjan had picked his targets mostly from fringe areas, including Madhyamgram, Birati, Sonarpur, Garia and Baruipur. He allegedly impressed his victims by explaining technical details of the business.

Most of the candidates paid up half the initial investment figure quoted by Chittaranjan and started scouting for space in their localities. “Finally, when a resident of Bishnupur, Bappa Sadhukhan, realised that he had been duped of Rs 1.3 lakh after failing to trace the couple, he lodged a police complaint,” the officer added.

Cops said the number of people duped by Chittaranjan was likely to go up as the investigation progressed.