Unit VI of the Mumbai Crime Branch has arrested a 30-year-old who 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.