Gurugram man loses ₹5 lakh to gang posing as Mumbai Police

Police said the conmen, who are yet to be arrested, invoked Official Secrets Act to threaten the victim

Unidentified suspects have been booked for allegedly duping a city resident of ₹5.16 lakh by posing as officers of Mumbai Police and the public prosecutor and threatening to implicate him in a money laundering and terror funding case, police said on Wednesday.

Within two hours of establishing contact, the con men duped the victim of ₹5.16 lakh, police said. (Representational Image)

Police said the con men, who are yet to be arrested, invoked Official Secrets Act to threaten the victim, Sharad Kumar Tijoriya (34), and to keep him from sharing any detail with his family and friends.

According to the victim, they even made him listen to a fake “police communication on wireless” so as to convince him of the “gravity” of the matter.

Investigators said what was concerning was that the fraudsters had all private and confidential information on Tijoriya, including his bank account details as well as the balance available in the account, and it was these details which convinced him that he was actually talking to police and government officials.

Within two hours of establishing contact, the con men duped him of ₹5.16 lakh, police said.

Narrating the sequence of events, police said Tijoriya, a resident of Sector 49, received a phone call around 10am on March 26 from a man posing as a FedEx official from Mumbai to inform him that a courier containing illegal items and addressed to him has been received at their office and he should talk to personnel at Colaba police station to lodge a complaint if he had no links with the package.

A senior officer of Gurugram police said the con man transferred the call and another suspect posing as an inspector from Colaba police station started interacting with Tijoriya.He informed Tijoriya he was a suspect in a money laundering case linked with terror funding and would likely be arrested.

“On Tijoriya’s multiple requests, the man pretended to interact with someone else on a wireless “for Tijoriya’s background verification”. Tijoriya was made to hear the communication over the call. After that, the “inspector” shared details of Tijoriyas’ bank account,all of which were accurate and convinced Tojoriya that he was indeed talking to cops and was in big trouble,” the officer said, asking not to be named.

Police said the man pretending to be the inspector cautioned Tijoriya against share anything with his family or anyone else and threatened that he will be in more trouble under the Official Secrets Act for leaking sensitive information if he did so.

Police said Tijoriya was already panicking as he overheard on the purported “wireless communication” that there was an order to arrest him and his family members for suspected involvement in money laundering and terror activities.

“The suspect took every minute personal detail of the victim’s family including movable and immovable assets. After a long discussion, the suspect pretending to be the inspector, said he would “contact headquarters” to speed up the “probe” and to not arrest him,” the officer said.

Investigators said afterwards, the “inspector” got Tijoriya connected to another suspect pretending to be the public prosecutor, who gave him 30 minutes to submit documentation for securing anticipatory bail.

They said the ” public prosecutor” later asked Tojiriya to pay ₹5.16 lakh for preparing documents on his behalf and appearing in the court to secure bail.

Tijoriya told him that he didn’t have that much money to which the suspect told him not to lie as there was ₹9 lakh in his account, investigators said.

With no option left, Tijoriya immediately transferred the money to an account number provided by the suspect. After sometime, all suspects stopped responding to Tijoriya’s calls and that was when he finally realised that he had been conned.

On his complaint, an FIR under sections 419 (cheating by personation) and 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 66D (cheating by personation) of Information Technology Act was registered at Cybercrime (east) police station on Tuesday.

Subhash Boken, public relations officer of Gurugram police, said the investigation was on to trace the account into which the victim had transferred money and using that info to trace and nab the suspects.