The Rajasthan police have warned all comers to Bharatpur to beware of a group of conmen who have been luring people by offering to sell second-hand goods at throwaway prices, and then robbing them in secluded areas, police officers and victims of the thefts said on Tuesday.
Police said at least 46 such cases have been reported in the past one year in the Mewat region, of which Bharatpur is a part -- in almost every instance, people were lured to the region from other cities through products advertised on the online marketplace OLX.
The list of victims includes brothers Sanjay Kumar and Arvind Kumar, aged 33 and 35, from Uttarakhand. They saw an advertisement on OLX last November for a second-hand Mahindra XUV 500 being sold at a third of its showroom price in Bharatpur.
“We’d sealed the deal at Rs4.5 lakh and reached Bharatpur’s Kama on November 22 to buy the car,” Arvind said.
The brothers were met by four men on two motorcycles who offered to take them to the seller. But the bikers led them to a secluded spot instead, thrashed them and took away the money they had brought to buy the car and their mobile phones.
Such crimes have become so common in the area that police have put up billboards warning people that they could be tricked and looted if they have come to Bharatpur district to buy products such as cars, CCTV cameras, refrigerators, a plot of land, and gold bricks through OLX.
{{/usCountry}}Such crimes have become so common in the area that police have put up billboards warning people that they could be tricked and looted if they have come to Bharatpur district to buy products such as cars, CCTV cameras, refrigerators, a plot of land, and gold bricks through OLX.
{{/usCountry}}Bharatpur’s superintendent of police Anil Kumar Tank said that fraudsters used to pick up a telephone directory, call up random people and offer them gold bricks at lucrative rates in the past. “Now, online portals have become a convenient way.”
Even men in uniform have been targeted. The con men posted photographs of a police officers personal car for sale on OLX last August. “I was asked by an acquaintance if my car was up for sale after he saw it on the portal. Shocked, I went to the portal and saw that there was a photograph of my car parked at the outpost,” said Harbhan Singh, assistant sub-inspector at Kama police station.
A police team went posing as buyers and arrested Shakir Mev and Faijan Mev in connection with the crime. There have been 64 arrests in the past one year, but the crimes do not stop and the modus operandi doesn’t change, police said.
“We are doing our best to warn people about this racket. We alert people through messages on phones, on social media, and we have also put up more warning boards on the streets,” said Tank.
An OLX spokesperson said that the company, too, has advised users to avoid “risk-prone areas such as Mewat and Bharatpur” while transacting through the online portal. “We have also given contact details of the local police station and cyber crime cells of these regions, in case any user wants to register an FIR,” the spokesperson added in an email response.