Posing as cop and lawyer, duo cheats prof of Rs 1L
Bengaluru: Posing as cop and lawyer, two fraudsters took Rs 1 lakh from a 50-year-old professor of a city-based deemed-to-be university. The professor gave the money after the duo threatened that her passport would be impounded.
Papri Ray, a resident of Habitat Layout in Doddanekkundi, even visited Delhi to confirm the story the two men told her, but she returned and filed a complaint with the jurisdictional Mahadevapura police on Sunday.
In her complaint, Papri said she received a mobile phone call on July 23 from a man identifying himself as Vinod Tyagi, an officer with the Delhi police.
Tyagi told her about a complaint against Papri for not paying an international cellular phone service she used during her foreign trip and the police would issue a summons to her in three days. They would follow it up with impounding of her passport.
Shocked by the information, Papri tried reasoning with Tyagi, saying that she needed to travel to the United States to attend her daughter’s convocation, reiterating that she had already planned the trip.
Tyagi said legal action would be taken if she failed to clear the dues. After repeated requests, he shared the contacts of one Harjith Singh, claiming that he was the advocate with the Delhi High Court handling the case.
Singh told her to pay Rs 1.16 lakh dues. Believing the complaint to be true, Papri offered to pay Rs 1 lakh online and paid the money to an account number Singh had shared.
She realised the fraud as she failed to get a response and did not succeed in contacting the two men. Papri then went to the national capital to verify their claims but learnt that no complaint filed against her.
She went to the Delhi High Court to meet Harjith Singh, only to learn that there was no advocate by that name.
Based on her complaint, Mahadevapura police booked Vinod Tyagi and Harjith Singh under various sections of the IT Act. They are trying to track down the accused through the mobile numbers and bank account details.
