How can I recover money from friend legally?

Hello Sir/Madam! Me & my friend have lent large sum of money to one of our common friend since we were led to believe that it will be returned. But as it happens, he is not returning that money in-spite of repeated follow ups. When I dug some info about him from the past, I found out that since last 11 years (appox) he has been taking money from people and either delaying or avoiding payments. He was even reported to the HR of the company where he used to work since he cheated many people in the company with their money. We gave him several warnings but he's not taking it seriously. His other victims say that we are unlikely to get the money back from him. I am looking for advice on lodging a suit against him plus making this issue public so that in future people know about him and other innocent people are not cheated of their hard earned money.