Conman arrested from Panchkula club, had duped Rishabh Pant too: Cops
The conman, identified as Mrinank Singh, is allegedly a former cricketer from Haryana and had earlier been caught by the Mumbai Police on charges of cheating a businessman of ₹6 lakh
The conman accused of duping cricketer Rishabh Pant of ₹1.6 crore in 2021 has been caught for defrauding a Jalandhar-based travel agent of ₹5.75 lakh.
The accused, identified as Mrinank Singh, is allegedly a former cricketer from Haryana and had earlier been caught by the Mumbai Police on charges of cheating a businessman of ₹6 lakh.
Mrinank was arrested along with his aide from a club in Panchkula, as per Mohali senior superintendent of police (SSP) Sandeep Garg. The aide’s identity has not been revealed as of now.
In the latest case, Jalandhar-based travel agent, Vijay Singh had alleged that the accused, posing as an assistant director general of police, had got domestic air tickets and hotel rooms booked for ₹5.78 lakh. The accused later met him in Mohali, where he borrowed ₹50,000 cash, promising to return it within 15 minutes, but fled.
Following the complaint, a case under Section 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code was registered against an unidentified person.
However, during the course of the investigation, it came to the fore that the accused had also duped cricketer Rishabh Pant of ₹1.6 crore and was facing a similar fraud in Mumbai too, where he had duped a businessman. In the businessman’s case, he had been sent to the Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai, from where he was released recently.
How Pant was tricked
In January 2021, Mrinank had approached Pant and his manager, Puneet Solanki, claiming that he was into the business of buying and selling luxury watches, bags and jewellery. He claimed to have sold the goods to several other cricketers too.
Buying his story, Pant handed over a luxury watch and few other jewellery items to the accused for resale, against which the accused gave him a cheque of ₹1,63,00,000 in February 2021 which later bounced.
SSP Sandeep Garg said the accused is obsessed with maintaining a rich lifestyle and used to visiting clubs, bars and restaurants to find potential targets.