A 33-year-old Bengaluru man has been arrested on Wednesday for allegedly duping a woman of ₹89 lakh after claiming to be working in the Prime Minister’s Office and promising to help her with a visa.
Police said, Arahanth Mohan Kumar Lakkavalli, who had claimed he worked with the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) is a B Com graduate and a real estate agent based in Rajajinagar in Bengaluru.
The victim met Mohan Kumar on a flight to Kuala Lumpur in June 2019. She filed a complaint with the Bellandur police on April 26.
The woman had her application for Italian and Czech Republic visas rejected. In January 2020, she got a visa but wanted to find out why her application had been rejected before. Kumar, who introduced himself as an IB officer when he met the woman on a flight offered to help her, said her passport had been placed on a blacklist and that she had been booked for the “suspected terrorist activities act”.
According to police, the woman sought Kumar’s help to clear her name and allegedly said he would have to pay 5 lakh euros ( approximately ₹4 crore) to authorities in Austria and the Czech Republic and 2 lakh euros ( approximately ₹2 crore) to those in Italy. In February and September of 2021, the woman claimed to have transferred ₹89 lakh to him for the purpose. When there was no response from him, the woman approached the police.
{{/usCountry}}According to police, the woman sought Kumar’s help to clear her name and allegedly said he would have to pay 5 lakh euros ( approximately ₹4 crore) to authorities in Austria and the Czech Republic and 2 lakh euros ( approximately ₹2 crore) to those in Italy. In February and September of 2021, the woman claimed to have transferred ₹89 lakh to him for the purpose. When there was no response from him, the woman approached the police.
{{/usCountry}}Following this, the police arrested him the next day and found out that he had also collected a lot of documents from the woman.
Deputy commissioner of police (Whitefield) S Girish reported having said, “He has travelled to many countries in Europe and other places. He is not cooperating with the investigation. We suspect he might have cheated others as well as he did not have an income big enough to support these foreign trips. We have frozen his bank accounts and are yet to recover money.”
It is also reported that he carried a notebook with details of his travels to various parts of the country and abroad, and has visited police stations with the woman. Interestingly, the officers whom he met in these offices had no clue he was posing as an IB officer, the police said.