3 arrested for duping 79-yr-old with promise of ancestral gold

Delhi police arrested three men accused of duping a 79-year-old of ₹39 lakh and stealing ₹15 lakh in jewellery through a fake treasure ritual.

Three men, including one posing as a tantric, have been arrested for allegedly cheating a 79-year-old retired businessman in Delhi’s Shahdara of nearly ₹40 lakh and stealing gold jewellery worth around ₹15 lakh on the pretext of recovering buried ancestral treasure through occult rituals, police said on Sunday.

Police said the incident took place in August, when the accused allegedly gained the elderly man’s confidence by showing him a gold coin and promising to recover buried ancestral gold. (Shutterstock)

Police said the incident took place in August, when the accused allegedly gained the elderly man’s confidence by showing him a gold coin and promising to recover buried ancestral gold.

They allegedly induced him to make cash and UPI payments, saying the money was needed to perform rituals to recover the gold. They then demanded more money to purchase tools and hire people, before staging a ritual at his residence and stealing jewellery from his cupboard.

According to police, a case was registered at Seemapuri police station on the complaint of Girijesh Singh, 79, who alleged that he had been cheated of around ₹39 lakh through cash and UPI transactions.

The accused were identified as Tahsin alias Krishna Pandit, 48, a resident of Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh; Shoaib Ali, 40, from Dasna in Ghaziabad; and Mahakader Khan, 48, from Paschim Medinipur in West Bengal.

“On the night of August 4, the accused allegedly conducted a ritual at his residence using steel pots containing soil and fake gold biscuits. The complainant alleged that he was administered a sedative and became unconscious. When he regained consciousness, he found that gold jewellery worth around ₹15 lakh had gone missing from his cupboard,” an officer said.

Police said they scanned CCTV footage and conducted technical surveillance for several weeks before tracing the alleged main accused, who had been posing as Krishna Pandit, to Amba Vihar in Muzaffarnagar. His identity was established as Tahsin, and he was arrested, police said.

During the investigation, Shoaib Ali and Mahakader Khan were also arrested for allegedly introducing the complainant to the fake tantric and facilitating the subsequent transactions.

Police recovered ₹2.73 lakh in cash, an SUV allegedly used in the crime, 11 rings, two Aadhaar cards, a PAN card, an ATM card and two mobile phones.

Investigators suspect the accused used multiple identities and staged occult rituals to gain victims’ confidence and induce them to part with money and valuables.