Posing as RBI employee, woman cheats physically challenged relative of ₹96 lakh

67-year-old physically challenged man duped of ₹96 lakh by relative posing as RBI employee promising ₹2 lakh/month return on investment in bank bonds.

A 67-year-old physically challenged man from Lalbaug has been duped of ₹96 lakh by one of his own relatives who posed as a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) employee and lured him with an assured return of ₹2 lakh per month by investing in the bank’s bonds.

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According to the police, Govind Rane is retired from Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited and has a disabled son. Ever since his wife died in 2014, the father and son have been living in ashrams in Gorai and Virar respectively.

Rane was always worried about the future of his son and wanted a fixed income to ensure he was taken care of.

The complainant said he met Mrudula Kiran Surve aka Mrudula Aravi Omkar Bhosale, 34, at a function in 2016 when she introduced herself as an RBI employee. “She told him that the RBI had introduced a scheme under which if one invested in their shares, he could get an assured income of ₹2 lakh per month and thus he could secure his son’s future apart from meeting their daily expenses,” an officer from Kalachowkie police station said.

Trusting the woman, a resident of Kherwadi in Bandra, the complainant initially invested ₹22 lakh in RBI bonds/shares through her.

“From 2017 to 2023, she extracted a sum of ₹96 lakh from him under the guise of investing in RBI bonds. When he started asking about the return, she gave him five post-dated cheques but all of them were not honoured when presented for encashment,” the police officer said.

The woman even asked some people to call Rane posing as RBI officials and forged share certificates, bank passbooks to show that his money was safe and was increasing, the officer said. “She even asked Rane not to talk about his investments to his close relatives, including his daughter.”

The man gave all his savings and retirement money to her. Now, he and his son survive on a pension of ₹30,000 per month that he gets, the officer added.

The police on Monday registered a case against the woman under section 170 (personating a public servant) ,406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating), 465 (forgery), 467 (forgery of valuable security), and 471 (using as genuine a forged document) of the Indian Penal Code.