Man poses as ticket collector and dupes people on pretext of exchanging old notes in Mumbai

The Marine Drive police are on the lookout for a person who has been posing as a railway ticket collector and duping people under the pretext of exchanging the demonetised high-value currency for the new one.

The Marine Drive police are on the lookout for a person who has been posing as a railway ticket collector and duping people under the pretext of exchanging the demonetised high-value currency for the new one. Recently a South Mumbai-based LIC agent was duped by the trickster while the agent was standing in queue to exchange his old currency at a bank.

People wait outside a bank in Colaba in Mumbai. (Arijit Sen/HT)

According to the police, LIC agent, Sanjay Bhise, was standing in queue at the Churchgate branch of the State Bank of India when the accused approached him introducing himself as Mr Kulkarni.

An officer from the Marine Drive police station said, “The accused said he was a railway ticket collector and asked whether the agent was happy to stand in long queues for hours, following which he offered him a helping hand. The fraudster told him that being a ticket collector he can help him exchange old notes from the money collected by the railway department.”

The officer said the accused would go and stand in queues outside a bank, following which he would approach people claiming to be a ticket collector and then take them to Churchgate station’s ticket counter where he would flee the spot with the money the victims gave for exchange.

“The accused took Bhise to Churchgate station and even gave him his number to win his trust. He then took Rs9,000 in cash from Bhise and asked him to wait near the ticket counter,” said an officer. Later, the accused disappeared, and as Bhise tried to contact him on the mobile number provided by him, the LIC agent found the number switched off.

“We enquired with the Churchgate ticket office and found that there was no employee bearing the surname Kulkarni and also showed the complainant photos of the employees there, but he couldn’t recognize anyone,” added the officer.

The accused has been booked under sections 170 (impersonating a public servant) and 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of the Indian Penal Code.

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