39-year-old saved from the brink of suicide after frauds dupe him of ₹99 lakh

Posing as senior Mumbai police officers, cyber fraudsters allegedly ran an elaborate extortion racket and cheated a 39-year-old gas agency owner from Malad of ₹99 lakh, pushing him to the brink of suicide, police said

MUMBAI: Posing as senior Mumbai police officers, cyber fraudsters allegedly ran an elaborate extortion racket and cheated a 39-year-old gas agency owner from Malad of ₹99 lakh, pushing him to the brink of suicide, police said. After his wife reported him missing on December 15, the police finally traced the victim to the Dahanu railway station in Palghar and found him on Friday. He had left home wanting to end his life believing he would soon be arrested.

39-year-old saved from the brink of suicide after frauds dupe him of ₹99 lakh

According to the police, the fraud began in September when the victim, Yogesh (name changed), lent around ₹10,500 to an acquaintance, Niraj (name changed) who organised the Ganpati pandal in the neighbourhood. Soon after, Yogesh received a call from a fraudster claiming to be the joint commissioner of police. The fraud claimed that Niraj had committed a murder and the ₹10,500 which Yogesh had lent Niraj was in fact a ‘supari’, a payment for a contract killing.

A police officer said, “A few days later Yogesh got a call from yet another unknown number claiming that Niraj had been killed to ‘save’ him. The caller then demanded ₹2 lakh as payment for the murder.”

The frauds kept calling Yogesh and asking him for money to avoid being arrested. What began with a demand for ₹50,000, eventually rose to ₹7 lakh as another fraud posing as a police officer named Avinash Shinde, demanded more money to “settle” the case. Yogesh told the police that whenever he made cash payments, a senior citizen met him at a nearby garden to collect the cash. One of the frauds impersonating the Mumbai police commissioner even demanded ₹20 lakh and threatened to immediately arrest him.

“As the demands kept increasing, the gas agency owner paid nearly ₹80 lakhs in cash and ₹19 lakh via online payments,” said a police officer. The police added that Yogesh had taken several loans from various finance companies to pay the frauds. On December 15, he left his house. “He told us that he wanted to die by suicide as he was afraid of getting arrested,” said a police officer.

Acting on his wife’s complaint, the police said they found him just in the nick of time as he was contemplating suicide at the Dahanu railway station. An offence has been registered against unknown persons under section 308 (extortion) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, and the police are probing into the victim’s call records, payment trails and the role of the senior citizen who collected the cash.