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  SISTERS IN CRIME: Dancer and actress Shalu Menon, one of the accused in Kerala's solar power scam

Saritha Nair is in jail, but her name continues to send shivers down the spines of some of Kerala's top honchos. No one wants to admit that they know her or have met her. To do so would be tantamount to admitting that they have fallen for the honey trap supposedly set up by the woman who's often been described by the media and police as voluptuously sexy.

Nair, a co-accused in Kerala's sensational and high-profile solar power scam which has been rocking the state, and her paramour Biju Radhakrishnan, have been accused of conning people into investing in fictitious solar power projects, saying that they had government backing.

Investigations into her telephone calls and text messages led the police to state chief minister Oommen Chandy's office, resulting in the arrest of his former aide and the suspension of two of his office staff members. But that's not the end of the matter. From jail, Nair is supposed to have indicated that she may name 'important people' who 'misused her body and soul'. So it's not surprising that quite a few top-level politicians, businessmen, bureaucrats and police officers are still quaking in their boots.

Kerala, known for high human development indices that underline the empowerment of women in areas such as health and literacy, is now looking at the flip side of the story. Suddenly, several women from the state are in the news — for various kinds of crimes.

You can call them the Mango Dollies (Mango Dolly was Quick Gun Murugan's lady love in the 2009 eponymous film). Devika K., a social scientist and feminist scholar at the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram, stresses that they have 'knocked down' the image of Kerala women as 'agents of social development'.

Among the women scamsters hitting the headlines is another co-accused in the solar power scam — a well-known Malayalam dancer and actress called Shalu Menon. The principal of the Jayakerala School of Performing Arts, she is a prominent figure in Kerala's society, being the grand-daughter of the legendary dancer Thripunithura Aravindaksha Menon. A censor board member and an actress, she was last seen in a mother's role in a Malayalam action thriller this year.

Yet another actress from Kerala has been in the news lately. Leena Maria Paul was arrested in May from New Delhi for abetting her con artist boyfriend, Sukash Chandrasekhar, who duped people of lakhs of rupees. This 24-year-old actress was a 'willing accomplice' to his crimes, the police say. Her parents thought that all that she wanted was to become a film star, recounts K. Ravikumar, Chennai DCP, crime branch.

But Paul, the police hold, pretended she was Chandrasekhar's secretary and helped con several people and a bank. Her boyfriend flooded her with expensive gifts. When she travelled, she did so with four bodyguards.

Kerala's glamourous women criminals have one thing in common — they are no shrinking violets but are articulate upper-class women. Nair's mother, for instance, is a headmistress while her father is an administrative officer in a college. The accused left behind a bright academic career and a husband in the Gulf who was much older than her to cross over to a life of crime with Biju. They apparently fell in love while working together in a firm.

A year ago, in Perumbavoor, Nair and Biju met a local businessman called Sajjad. Biju was posing as Dr R.B. Nair, a bureaucrat with a doctorate in renewable energy, and Nair as Lakshmi, the director of a solar plant firm they fronted together in 2011 called Team Solar Renewable Energy & Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

Sajjad, who had read their advertisements in newspapers about establishing solar plants in a state starved of power, was convinced they were 'genuine'. He parted with Rs 40 lakh which he had received as his share from the sale of his deceased father's property.

When there was no sign of a solar plant and Biju stopped taking his calls, the harried businessman went to the police. The deputy superintendent of police of Perumbavoor, K. Harikrishnan, swiftly moved to arrest Saritha Nair. Soon, many of the scams that the two had played on gullible people became public. Harikrishnan is now preparing a charge sheet for what's being described as Kerala's most volatile case in recent times.

In Perumbavoor, the police are hunting for another con woman, Simi Kuttapan. An informal helper at the state's employment generating women's empowerment programme, Kudumbashree, she collected Rs 88 lakh from people promising to get them loans provided at certain Kudumbashree centres through a World Bank initiative. For the loan, a commission had to be paid, she said — and absconded after pocketing the money.

'Greed is not limited to men,' reasons Jacob Punnoose, former Kerala director general of police and present CEO of the National Games Secretariat at Thiruvananthapuram. The state, he points out, is rolling in surplus liquid cash, and there are women looking to make a fast buck.

Nair's story resembles the plot of a cheap dime novel. Apocryphal stories are spun around her, which are neither denied, nor confirmed. The police say she filmed herself having sex with men through a hidden camera and then blackmailed them. It was when her relationship with Biju soured that Menon came into the picture.

The police stress that when the solar scam first surfaced, Menon protested her innocence, claiming to be in the dark about Biju's shady dealings. However, as more victims of Biju's fraud stepped forward to complain, the police say they discovered she too had duped a non-resident Malayali with promises of a German solar plant and windmill project.

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  Leena Maria Paul was arrested in Delhi in May

Police sources say that Menon, who was also charged with harbouring a criminal on the run, was purely motivated by 'her greed for money'. Biju, they said, had used his 'ill-gotten wealth' on Shalu Menon's new palatial bungalow and dance school.

'These women are motivated by their love of luxury, five star hotels, easy life and moving around with big people,' holds K. Ramakumar, senior advocate in Kochi. He narrates the 2006 case of Shobha John, who, apart from being the main accused in a major sex scandal involving a young girl who died, was accused of trying to blackmail a Sabarimala priest for money by photographing him in compromising positions with a woman.

Other women have also been named in cases related to fraud. There is, for instance, Sarasamma or Sara Williams, who made it to the Interpol's most wanted list in 2009 for trying to dupe an insurance firm in Britain by making a false claim of death.

Not every woman scamster is in the illegal business because of men — sometime it's the other way round. The police zeroed in on Sabarinath, when he was 20 years old, in a scam that promised people their investments would double through a company called Total4U in 2007. Police sources, however, believe he was just the front for a manipulative middle-aged woman called Chandramathi. She guided him, and together they cheated nearly 1,200 people of around Rs 50 crore, according to the final charge sheet filed by the crime branch in Thiruvananthapuram. Chandramathi, an assistant manager at the Small Industries Development Corporation, was also a censor board member and enjoyed contacts with people from all walks of life.

Through her connections, Chandramathi would canvass for investors promising them high returns. The two convinced the depositors that they would be investing their money in extremely profitable ventures. The crime branch says Chandramathi's illegal earnings were deposited in various banks. Investigating officer Harshita Attaluri wrote in her report that Chandramathi had no source of income that could explain such wealth.

It was another woman who tripped her. Sabarinath, who was leading a flashy and luxurious life, apparently fell in love with an airhostess, who was a bank manager's daughter. Chandramathi was piqued when she got to know that Sabarinath was spending money on the airhostess. So she warned the depositors to pull out of the business. Depositors landed up at his doorstep, but Sabarinath could not pay them back — and the scam was unearthed.

Chandramathi is out of jail and has started another business.

Social scientist Devika says she is not surprised by the turn of events, because conspicuous consumption today is the mode of assertion in society. 'These scams have led people to mock women's empowerment. But these women are hardly connected to the legal world of business,' she says.

Ex-cop Punoose, however, stresses that one cannot tarnish the female population of Kerala because of a few women. 'When a woman comes out into a man's world a small percentage is bound to slip. They are a small number but because it is so rare they attract attention,' he says.

It's not just that they attract attention. Some of the women are threatening to bring down governments. Clearly, even in crime, they are empowered.