Conman caught by Vigilance projected himself as a philanthropist who promoted sports

After completing his MBA from Australia, Harshvardhan Reddy returned to India and, in a span of a few years, managed to open several companies and was the proud owner of a fleet of luxury cars.

His meteoric rise in the corporate world was accompanied by his philanthropic endeavours, as he sponsored and hosted several different sporting events in the country.

However, what goes up must eventually come down, and Reddy found that the hard way after the Vigilance Branch of South District police found that he was duping banks and people across the country and was now the face of a Rs 600 crore scam.

Reddy was arrested from Patiala House court when he was on his way to get updates on a string of cheating cases against him. The State Bank of India had already seized his luxury cars and his assets have been frozen.

His various dealings with the sporting community have now come under the scanner as Reddy had sponsored many sporting events in various states due to his 'love of sports'.

"He had sponsored many events. In Uttar Pradesh, he took a 16 year contract with the Uttar Pradesh Olympic Association. He had shared the development on his Facebook profile page on October 7, 2016. Reddy's company, HVR Sports, had also sponsored events like the Junior Girl's Head ball championship and, earlier this year, even the Haryana State Athletics Association received financial support from HVR Sports," said a Vigilance source.

With several hundreds of crores being funnelled into his various companies, Reddy knew that it would soon start to attract unwanted attention.

So he began financing several sporting events and even gave sponsorships to several promising athletes from Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

Many of these moves were carefully documented on YouTube through his official sporting channel HVR Sports.

Reddy, according to the investigators, was a familiar face of many sporting events and used to hobnob with celebrities and various political leaders.

In the year 2015, he had co-hosted the Baroda Cup Polo tournament, in which the Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson and many political leaders from Lutyens Delhi had shown up.

After hosting such high profile events, Reddy started to attract attention. To mould his image into that of a philanthropist, he turned to elite sports such as Golf.

Putting a spin on the sport, he organised several events to spread and popularise golf in the hinterland and offered scholarships to scout for 'talent' and to 'nurture them into future sportsmen of the country'.

Reddy used such pursuits to generate goodwill and contacts with high-profile people.

His company also collaborated with the Indian Golf Union (IGU) and offered sponsorships, pertaining to IGU tournaments, for training, preparation and participation for the national golf squad for the 2016 Olympics and the forthcoming 2020 Olympics.

Now, vigilance officials are scrutinising Reddy's bank records and his company's dealings in a bid to identify the other victims who may have been duped by him. The local police of Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra have also been contacted.

Reddy had been on the run in his Maserati Quattraporte, his Rs 3 crore luxury sports car, which was later seized on the day of his arrest.

Investigators have also hinted that apart from the four luxury cars seized from his possession, many more cars may be hidden in different farmhouses across several states owned by Reddy.