Chennai: It would make for a great film script. The arrest of Madhan early this week, in a Rs 84.59 crore cheating case involving aspiring medical students, revealed the film producer’s creative tactics in evading the law, since May.

The police, who are trying to piece together the puzzle, confirmed that Madhan led the life of a bon vivant while absconding from the law. The graduate of the Marathwada Institute of Technology, Aurangabad, drove a Porsche and frequently changed his appearance. “While for some months, he tonsured his head, during others, he sported a long beard and wore saffron clothes, and he kept varying the size of his moustache,” sources added.

He also did not keep to one spot, moving from Bengaluru to Goa, Kochi, Tirupur, Manipur, Roorkee, Haridwar, Varanasi and Devaprayag, sources said. Apparently, he had 15 smartphones and used a SIM card only once to text and call his close friends.

Finally, the investigating team made a major breakthrough in the missing producer’s case after they found the whereabouts of his woman associate, Varsha, a former cinema fashion designer. She initially denied her association with Madhan when the police approached her at her house in Tiruppur, but he was found hiding in a secret chamber inside, following which he was brought to Chennai and produced yesterday before the court, which granted his seven-day custody to the police.

It is expected that Varsha will also be questioned on her association with Madhan, although she reportedly stated that she provided him refuge only because she felt he could help her with his cinema connections. She is a relative of his second wife. Varsha also said that Madhan had assured her that he would soon surrender to the police, and she stressed that she was not related to any of his fraudulent activities.