Driver poses as I-T officer, dupes 40 jobseekers of ₹2 cr

Mira Bhayander-Vasai Virar crime branch arrested Rinku Jeetu Sharma for cheating over 40 people of ₹2 crore by posing as an Income Tax officer.

MUMBAI: The Mira Bhayander-Vasai Virar (MBVV) crime branch has arrested a 33-year-old driver, who had allegedly cheated over 40 people to the tune of ₹2 crore by posing as an Income Tax (I-T) deputy commissioner after promising them jobs in the department. The police recovered 28 fake ID cards of the I-T department from him.

Driver poses as I-T officer, dupes 40 jobseekers of ₹2 cr

The Navi Mumbai resident was arrested on Tuesday in connection with a case registered at the Pelhar police station on December 12, 2024. According to the police, the accused, identified as Rinku Jeetu Sharma, had been extracting money from the complainant since 2021, and cheated him to the tune of ₹15 lakh.

The complainant told the police that he had approached Sharma to get a job for his daughter. He said after he paid the accused, he was given an appointment letter and ID card too, but both the documents turned out to be fake.

Another victim, Rahul Saude, 31, a resident of Vasai said he was looking for work after losing his job during the Covid-19 lockdown when he met Sharma through acquaintances in 2022. Sharma offered Saude the job of an assistant income tax officer and demanded ₹3 lakh as commission.

Saude paid Sharma the amount over a period of two years and Sharma ‘confirmed’ his appointment through a letter on post. He even sent Saude an ‘ID card’ and asked him to join duty at the Bandra-Kurla Complex office of the I-T Department from September 2024.

“I trusted him as he used to flash the ID of the I-T department and move around in a car having an amber beacon light,” said Saude. “There was nothing in his behaviour to raise any doubt that he could be fake.”

However, doubts arose once Sharma stopped taking his calls. His doubts were confirmed when he went to join work only to be told that the appointment letter was fake. “That day I realised that I was cheated,” Saude said.

Police said that the accused used to work as a driver for a contractor who leased cars to government offices. “This is how he got cars with beacons,” an officer of MBVV police station said.

Many others, like Saude, approached police with similar complaints against Sharma, after which the crime branch began tracing the mobile phone locations of the accused. “We got the location of Sharma’s Taloja house, where he had been staying for 15 years, and arrested him,” said Avinash Ambure, deputy commissioner of police, crime, MBVV.

He further said that on searching the accused’s house, they found several documents and ID cards referring to him as an officer of the I-T department. The police are now tracing Sharma’s past to find out if he had criminal records, and how many people he had cheated using the same modus operandi.