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Freedom 251 scam mastermind held for framing brother-in-law in threat case
The men were arrested for allegedly hatching a conspiracy to frame Goel’s brother-in-law in connection with a case that involved threatening a rape survivor
The Delhi Police on Saturday said they arrested Mohit Goel, the 34-year-old founder of Ringing Bells Company who allegedly masterminded the ₹200 crore Freedom 251 smartphone scam of 2016, along with two of his associates.
The men were arrested for allegedly hatching a conspiracy to frame Goel’s brother-in-law in connection with a case that involved threatening a rape survivor.
Goel’s brother-in-law, Vikas Mittal, was booked and arrested in connection with a case involving the rape, drugging, and threatening of a woman at the Dwarka South police station in August 2020.
According to the police, Goel considered Mittal a personal and business rival and suspected Mittal’s involvement in all the cases registered against him in 2016.
Goel conspired with his personal security officer (PSO) Vineet alias Shanky and accomplice Sumit Yadav to frame Mittal in false cases, said joint commissioner of police (crime) Alok Kumar.
Explaining the entire conspiracy, Kumar said that it all started with the registration of the rape case against Mittal in 2020. When Goel learnt about the case, he decided to settle his scores with him. First, he arranged a mobile phone and a SIM card using fake documents. When Goel learnt that Mittal, who was out on bail, had gone to Ujjain with his family, he sent Vineet there.
“After reaching Ujjain, Vineet telephoned the rape survivor impersonating Mittal, threatened her and asked her to meet him (Mittal) at the Delhi airport. Vineet returned to Delhi in the same flight that Mittal and his family members were travelling in. As Mittal landed at Delhi airport, he was arrested by the police on charges of threatening the woman,” he said.
On September 24, 2020, Goel sent Vineet to the Civil Lines area after he found out the woman was there. Vineet met her and threatened her at the Civil Lines Metro station. Goel’s other associate (Yadav) made sure to be in the vicinity and became a witness in the threatening case the woman filed at the Civil Lines police station.
The police said that Goel and Yadav planned to trap Mittal further. On October 18, 2020, Vineet called up Yadav from Gurugram and pretended to threaten him with dire consequences if he did not withdraw his name as a witness. Then Yadav, who was in Jind (Haryana) at that time, fired four rounds in the air with a pistol, went to the local police station and got an attempt to murder case registered against Mittal and unknown persons.
“Yadav, in his complaint, mentioned that he was subjected to a near-fatal attack because he was a witness in the threatening case lodged in Delhi by a rape survivor. The objective was to make the police believe that everything was happening on Mittal’s orders,” said the joint CP.
Since the local police were not able to identify or trace the unknown caller who had been threatening the woman, the Supreme Court transferred the case to the crime branch.
Investigators collected details of the flights between Delhi and Ujjain on the day the woman received the first threatening call and realised that Goel’s PSO Vineet had travelled in the same flight.
On October 2 this year, the police arrested Vineet from a rented apartment in Gurugram and he confessed during interrogation. His interrogation led to Goel’s arrest from Noida and Yadav’s arrest from Chandigarh on October 5 and 6 respectively.
Yadav is also wanted in connection with 12 cases registered in Noida against a fraudulent dry fruits company that he and Goel set up.
Goel, who belongs to Shamli in Uttar Pradesh, founded the Ringing Bells Private Ltd company in 2016 to sell smartphones named Freedom 251 at ₹251 in India under the Central government’s Digital India Programme.
Several cases were registered against him by distributors and dealers across India as he could not provide deliveries of the phones despite payments.
