Instagram influencer held for snatching dollars from Forex firm employee | Latest News Delhi - Hindustan Times
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Instagram influencer held for snatching dollars from Forex firm employee

Hindustan Times, New Delhi | By
Nov 20, 2020 07:28 AM IST

Earlier in September, the Instagram account of the woman showed she had accused the same friend of “fraud, blackmail, robbery and extortion” and of threatening her.

A 25-year-old Instagram “influencer” and her friend have been arrested for snatching $3,000 from a Forex exchange employee in south Delhi’s Hauz Khas earlier this month and then using the money to go to Goa where they stayed at a five-star hotel and played poker, the police said on Thursday.

Kushal too has been arrested because he had allegedly given his car to the suspects and had gone with them to Goa, said the DCP. “His role in the actual robbery is still being probed,” the officer said.(HT Archives. Representative image)
Kushal too has been arrested because he had allegedly given his car to the suspects and had gone with them to Goa, said the DCP. “His role in the actual robbery is still being probed,” the officer said.(HT Archives. Representative image)

Earlier in September, the Instagram account of the woman showed she had accused the same friend of “fraud, blackmail, robbery and extortion” and of threatening her.

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Atul Kumar Thakur, the deputy commissioner of police (south), said the woman, Amrita Sethi, and the man, Akshit Jhamb, have been friends for long even though they have an “on-off relationship”.

“She would file a case against him, write defamatory posts about him one day and patch up the next day,” the DCP said about their relationship but added that these aspects would still be probed further.

The Instagram account of Sethi has 80,000 followers. Her profile on the same platform said she was a social activist, fashion designer, “professional poker player Asia’s top 10” and “Miss Delhi”.

The DCP said while her claims of being Miss India are yet to be verified, Sethi is an avid poker player who took part in some tournaments in Goa. “However, these so-called rankings are mainly arbitrary and self-declared. She mostly plays poker for a living, it appears,” the DCP said.

Jhamb, 26, on the other hand, is an unemployed man who is into gambling, the DCP said.

Since November 3, two days before the alleged crime happened, Sethi’s Instagram account shows no new posts.

The DCP said the alleged crime took place on November 5 when Manoj Sood, an employee of a Forex exchange firm, was asked by his boss to deliver $3,000 to a client near south Delhi’s Panchsheel Club and seek an online transfer of R2.45 lakh in return.

“When Sood reached the location, he found Sethi and Jhamb sitting in a car,” the DCP said.

The two suspects posed as the client. “Together, they visited an ATM, but Indian currency couldn’t be withdrawn,” the DCP said.

They asked Sood to hand them over the dollars but he refused to oblige them until they produced the Indian cash, the officer said. “They asked him to at least show them the dollars. The moment he did that, they snatched the dollars from him and escaped in the car,” the DCP said.

On receiving the complaint, the police scanned CCTV footage to identify the car. They reached out to the owner who allegedly told the police his son and his two friends had driven out his car. “Since the owner’s son hadn’t returned home for three days, it seemed suspicious,” the DCP said.

The police finally learnt that the two suspects were staying in a five-star hotel in Goa. “We requested Goa Police for help and they went on to catch the duo on Wednesday. It turned out that even the car owner’s son, Kushaal, was staying in the same five-star hotel,” the DCP said.

They first allegedly tried to mislead Goa Police by saying they were on a work-related tour, but later confessed to the crime, said the officer. “They have spent much of the money on their hotel stay and playing poker,” Thakur said.

Kushal too has been arrested because he had allegedly given his car to the suspects and had gone with them to Goa, said the DCP. “His role in the actual robbery is still being probed,” the officer said.

The officer said Sethi claimed to have lent a few lakh rupees to Jhamb in the past for gambling in Goa, a dispute over which she had also filed a civil case in Delhi.

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