06 August,2010 08:19 AM IST | | Abhishek Anand
Delhi police arrests four accused for cheating people of lakhs of rupees
They are young, have a healthy appetite for wealth and would steal if necessary to acquire it. Delhi police arrested Sumeet Sehgal (21), Lakvesh Thakral (23), Pooja Kashyap (24) and Gaurav Shukla (25) recently for cheating several people of lakhs of rupees on the pretext of providing them easy loans at unbelievably low interest rates.
"The accused persons would operate in the name of fictitious finance agencies like Kothari Finance, Manikaran Finance, Irani Finance etc. and then lure people by publishing ads in newspapers about their scheme. They would then demand 10 per cent of the amount as processing fee from the victim. They would give a bank account number to the victim and as soon as the money was deposited, they would shut shop, change their address and mobile numbers and disappear," said a police officer.
One of their victims reported the matter to the police on June 12. The complainant said that he had seen a newspaper advertisement offering loans atu00a0 a discount of 42%.
He contacted the advertisers on the mobile number published and then the accused demanded that he deposit 35 thousand rupees in the SBI account of Pooja Sharma in Karawal Nagar area of Delhi. But once that was done the victim could no longer reach anyone on that phone number.
"We registered an FIR under section 420/468/471 and 120 B of IPC, on the complaint of the victim Pradeep Kumar in Vasant Vihar police station and we arrested all of the accused after sustained investigation. In the interrogation the accused revealed that in the short period of 3 months they duped different people of about Rs 11 lakh. Two of the accused were arrested on July 27 and the rest were nabbed on Thursday," said a police officer.
The police have recovered 85,000 rupees in cash, and a Santro car as well as a Pulsar motorcycle purchased with the ill-gotten money.
A laptop used for designing fake identities through photo editing, a scanner/Printer/Copier of HP used for preparation of fake identities and other related documents, 20 mobile phones, 47 SIM cards, 13 driving licences prepared on fake identities, 6 fake PAN cards, 15 ATM-cum-Debit Cards of several nationalised and private Banks, cash withdrawal/deposit slips of various banks, several rubber stamps of different fictitious finance firms, 13 cheque/pass books of various banks were also recovered.
EASY MONEY
The Crime Branch of Delhi Police has arrested a Chartered Accountant who cheated people by promising them great business opportunities and huge loans from foreign banks. Officials said the accused, Brij Bhushan Aggrawal (49) of Pitampura, has swindled a huge amount of money from several victims over 15 years. Officials said Aggarwal was wanted in a cheating case where he had taken Rs 12.5 lakh from a person for getting him a contract to run a canteen at Reliance Energy Ltd in Agra. He was also declared a Proclaimed Offender in another case of Karol Bagh where he had taken Rs 2.5 lakh from a person and had promised to get him a loan of Rs 25 crore from a foreign bank. In 1996, a case was registered against him at Kamla Market after he allegedly cheated another businessman of Rs 15 lakh by posing as an NRI and promising to facilitate rice export from India.
