Conman posed as Navi Mumbai top cop to dupe executive

A Dadar resident was arrested for allegedly helping an acquaintance dupe a woman by impersonating a police officer and transferring money into his bank account. The main accused and the caller impersonating the police officer are still being traced.

MUMBAI: A Dadar resident was arrested on Monday for allegedly letting his acquaintance transfer ₹5.85 lakh into his bank account after he duped Riddhi Mehta, 31, vice-president of Nirlon Group, by impersonating the Deputy Commissioner of Police (cybercrime) Milind Bharambe in November 2023.

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The accused, Faisal Shaikh, told the police that he had given the details of his bank account to his friend, who helped him open the account, and said that he would transfer some money to his account to save taxes and then withdraw it.

The officers are still tracing the main accused and the caller who impersonated police inspector (cyber) Pradip Sawant.

The incident occurred on November 10, when Mehta, a native of Gujarat, was in her Goregaon East office when she received a call at 2.30pm from a FedEx employee informing her that they had lodged a police complaint against her as they found a courier in her name which contained drugs in it.

Further, the employee said they would connect her to the Narcotics Bureau of the Mumbai police through Skype.

The Skype call was then connected to someone posing as PI Pradeep Sawant, who even showed her his identity card, demanding to know her bank account details, as her account was found to have been used by drug peddlers to transfer money.

She then received another call from someone posing as Deputy Commissioner of Police (cybercrime) Milind Bharambe (who is the commissioner of Navi Mumbai police), who showed his identity card to the woman through the video call, threatened to register an FIR against her, and asked her to send various amounts under different pretexts.

Mehta said she borrowed money from her relatives and sent it to the frauds. “Only after everything was over, I discussed it with my husband and realised I was cheated,” said Mehta. Her husband, who is a lawyer, informed her that no police officer would demand money like this. Mehta then approached the police, and based on her complaint, the police registered a case against the fraud for impersonation under relevant sections of the Information Technology Act, 2000.

“We have frozen the bank account of Shaikh and produced him before the court, which remanded him to police custody,” said a police officer.

“We are now tracing Shaikh’s acquaintance who had used his account to dupe the woman,” said a police officer from Vanrai police station.