Cops nab UP man who cheated women under garb of zakat

Asad Rizvi

Divine retribution was finally served to one Asad Rizvi, 43, in the holy month of Ramzan for cheating several women under the garb of zakat donation. The engineer was arrested on Saturday. This was the fruit of two years worth of efforts NGO worker Saima Sayyad, one of the women he'd cheated, took to track him down.

According to the police, Rizvi would pose as an Intelligence Bureau officer or the joint director of the Enforcement Directorate and claim he could help people raise funds for charity. He is also believed to have duped a Dubai-based investor of Rs 9 crore.

Sayyad had registered a case of cheating and impersonation against him at the Dongri police station in 2016. She told mid-day, "Rizvi approached me in 2014 on line, posing as a joint commissioner of ED, who could help raise funds for my NGO. We met in early 2016 and he claimed he could raise Rs 2.5 crore for my NGO." After they met, he sent her a picture of a cheque for Rs 2.86 crore on WhatsApp and asked her to transfer Rs 3 lakh as processing fees. He accompanied her to a bank, from where money was transferred to his account.

Sayyad added, "After transferring the amount, he took my phone to make a call. He was unaware of a call recorder on it that had recorded his conversation. He told someone that he'd taken Rs 3 lakh from me and he'll take more money and return.

That's when I realized that he was cheating me." Last week, after two years of tracking him down, she got to know he was in Pune. She immediately informed cops, who sent a team to Pune and held him from a lavish hotel on Saturday. "Rizvi was apparently trying to cheat a college teacher, when the police caught him," said an officer. During interrogation, he confessed to having cheated over 26 women, and many other investors. He also expressed regret at being arrested in such a small cheating case.

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