Airline ticket fraud accused arrested from Delhi

Mumbai crime branch arrested businessman Anshuman Joshi for a cheating case involving fake airline tickets. Joshi was earlier detained by Delhi police.

MUMBAI: Mumbai crime branch’s Unit 8 arrested a city businessman, Anshuman Joshi, wanted in connection with a cheating case involving airline tickets. They took his custody from Delhi police, who had arrested the accused on August 3, 2024, in a different case, and brought him to Mumbai on Monday morning. He was immediately placed under arrest and produced in the court which remanded him to police custody till August 23.

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Joshi, the police said, was running a call centre from Marol in Andheri from where, he and his associates cheated people under the pretext of selling cheap air tickets. The police had earlier arrested 12 people in the case.

Last year in August, Unit 8 of the Mumbai crime branch, headed by inspector Laxmikant Salunke, raided the Marol-based commercial property and arrested Mridul Joshi, 45, and 11 others who were allegedly running a bogus call centre. The accused were allegedly luring unsuspecting flyers into paying money under the pretext of selling cheap air tickets. However, police could not arrest Abhishek Alias Anshuman Joshi, who was in Delhi, and so he was kept in the ‘wanted list’.

Then Mumbai crime branch learnt about Joshi’s arrest by Delhi crime branch in a different cheating case on August 3, 2024. A team visited Delhi and, after completing the legal process, took custody of Joshi and brought him to Mumbai, said a crime branch officer.

The accused used to put out advertisements on social media offering cheap plane tickets to get ‘business’ for the fake call centre. During investigation, it was found that the accused spent over ₹2 crore on advertisements at that time, said the official.

The accused used to either send a confirmation that they obtain for holding the tickets or send fake tickets, and after taking money from the victims, block them. Most of their victims were Indians settled in Canada or Indians wanting to go to Canada, said the official.

The accused were running this racket since 2020 from Delhi but later relocated the entire team to Mumbai in January 2023. Mridul Joshi was an engineer, who had worked with several corporates. He and his brother Anshuman were also involved in an alleged embezzlement of ₹16 crore from Alwar Urban Cooperative Bank, in 2016.