Give this ’golden chance’ a miss

Conmen rob, murder people after luring them to secluded spot with promise of gold at half the going rate

Give this 'golden chance' a miss

Conmen rob, murder people after luring them to secluded spot with promise of gold at half the going rate

All that glitters is not gold. That is what a MiD DAY employee found out when a person solicited him through phone calls and promised to sell him gold at half the market price.

Enquiries with the police revealed that the call could have come from a gang of conmen who lure people to secluded spots with attractive offers and then rob them, sometimes even resorting to murder to cover their tracks.

The MiD DAY employee said a person called him up and asked him to come to Alwar in Rajasthan. The person on the other end explained to him that he would be given 50 grams of gold as a sample piece. He was told that after verifying the authenticity of the gold he would be sold up to 10 kg of gold at half the market price. The next thing the MiD DAY employee did was approach the police as he felt something was fishy in the whole deal.

The cyber cell wing of the police said two such cases of fraud have been registered, one in Hingoli and another in Nagpur. In the first instance, a woman was murdered after robbery and in the second, a man was beaten black and blue by the conmen after he was robbed.

"We appeal to people to distance themselves from such offers which appear too good to be true. One more case was registered six months ago where in a foreign national was allegedly cheated by fraudsters who said they would sell gold to him at half the price," said Assistant Police Inspector Dr Sanjay Tungar of cyber cell. "Going alone to a spot suggested by these callers could prove dangerous. We appeal to the people to lodge a police complaint."

MiD DAY then contacted Vaibhav Salunkhe, lawyer of the foreign national. He said his client was contacted through an e-mail that purported to be from a company dealing in bullion gold.u00a0 "He was asked to come to the city by the company officials (fraudsters). He was even shown some fake premise in the MIDC area. The victim ended up shelling out Rs 80 lakh in two instalments through online transaction. After that the officials and the company website suddenly disappeared." In this case, the foreign national was contacted through an e-mail.

"After he had transferred the money, he even received a reply from the company saying that the consignment carrying bullion gold was on its way. But even after waiting for almost two months it did not come and that's when he realised he had been duped," said Advocate Salunkhe.