Crime Branch’s Unit 6 has arrested a 30-year-old fraudster who allegedly led a gang involved in a series of cheating cases across Mumbai and Thane, where unsuspecting victims—mostly senior citizens—were duped into parting with their gold ornaments in exchange for fake cash bundles. 

On September 25, around 1.50 pm, two men approached a woman on CG Gidwani Marg in Chembur. They engaged her in friendly conversation, claiming they had found a bundle of money wrapped in a blue handkerchief. The men convinced the woman to remove her gold mangalsutra as “surety” before handing her the supposed cash — only for her to discover later that the bundle contained waste paper.