Delhi travel agent sold cheap air tickets, cancelled them to make millions: Cops

The police said there were several complaints against the suspect in police stations across Delhi and he is suspected to have duped about 25 people of an estimated ₹25 lakh, but his real identity could not be ascertained earlier.

The Gurugram Police, on Wednesday, arrested a 30-year-old Delhi-based travel agent for allegedly duping a city-based doctor, among 24 others, by making fake travel arrangements. The police said it took them seven months of surveillance to crack the case and arrest the suspect.

The suspect was produced before the district and sessions court and was taken on three days police remand for further investigation. (File image)

The suspect was identified as Suryakant Jha, a resident of Aya Nagar Extension, Delhi. He is a management graduate in marketing and had been duping people for the past four years, the police said.

The police said there were several complaints against the suspect in police stations across Delhi and he is suspected to have duped about 25 people of an estimated ₹25 lakh, but his real identity could not be ascertained earlier.

In April, the city police received a complaint from a 39-year-old dental surgeon, who alleged that he was duped by a travel agent of ₹84,000 on the pretext of booking air tickets to Kuala Lumpur.

Varun Bava, a resident of Sector 5, stated in his complaint that in December last year, he was looking for a travel organiser on the internet to plan a trip to Malaysia when the suspect contacted him through a travel aggregator.

“One of the travel aggregators was offering a cheap package for air tickets and stay in a resort. The suspect contacted me after I inquired about the airfare and hotel charges on the internet. During our phone conversation, he convinced us that he was a competent service provider and asked for an advanced payment. But, I refused to pay till he got the tickets booked,” Bava said.

“He then booked five tickets to Kuala Lumpur in January for three days, between January 5 and 7. We paid him the money in three online transactions for the tickets and hotel rooms for five persons. When we called the airlines, we were informed that our tickets had been cancelled by the agent without our consent or knowledge. We were also given a confirmed booking for a resort for three days. We had sent them a mail, but were informed that a booking had been done, but the amount was not paid. Finding ourselves cheated we approached the police,” Bava said.

Assistant commissioner of police (DLF) Karan Goel said, the travel aggregator confirmed that the accused was registered with them, but had not made any transaction for the past one year. “He has duped nearly 25 people in the last seven months of ₹25 lakh, including the doctor. We found his address from the aggregator but he had changed multiple locations in the past seven months, making it difficult for us to crack the case,” the ACP said.

“We are yet to recover his laptop and get the data from his possession to know the exact number of people he duped,” Goel said.

On April 1, a case under sections 420 (cheating) and 406 (criminal breach of trust) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 66D of the Information Technology Act was registered against the suspect at the Cyber Police station.

The suspect was produced before the district and sessions court and was taken on three days police remand for further investigation.