Model and Malayalam film actress Dhanya Mary Varghese has been arrested for financial fraud of Rs 130 crore (Dh70.4 million), said police on Friday.

Varghese, her husband John and his brother Samuel, were on the run after complaints filed by clients, who had booked apartments from Samson Builders, owned by John's family, but the company failed to honour the contracts.

Her father-in-law, Jacob Samsun, a former state government employee, was arrested last month, and the trio picked up from Tamil Nadu's Nagercoil on Thursday night and brought here on Friday.

According to police, Varghese, even though not a director in the company, had misled clients by stating on the company website that she was a director.

Samson Builders was in the process of constructing apartments and villas and had collected about Rs 100 crore from various clients and another Rs 30 crore from investors offering high rates of returns.

For the past several months, clients were after the company and following several deadlines for handing over the apartments being broken, many of them approached police and filed a case of cheating.

Varghese made her debut in the Tamil film "Thirudi" and later entered the Malayalam industry, where her popular films include "Nanma", "Thalappavu", "Vairam", and "Kerala Cafe".