Bengaluru: Engineering student cheats several shopkeepers by faking UPI payments

Bengaluru: An engineering student was arrested by West CEN Crime police for allegedly cheating several shopkeepers by faking UPI Payments.

The accused has been identified as Prashanth, a resident of Kanakapura. He was arrested on the basis of a complaint filed by T A Suresh, a jeweller from Raja Market, near Chickpet on August 17.

It is said that Prashanth had purchased a silver Diya, plate and tumbler for Rs 1.06 lakh from Suresh’s store on August 14.

Prashant offered to pay via UPI, a few minutes later he told Suresh that his UPI scanner wasn’t working. He then took Suresh’s phone number and showed two messages on his PhonePe account.

One message read “received 56,000” and another “received 50,000”. Suresh believed that he paid and handed over the purchased items.

However, the next day, Suresh checked his bank balance and realised that he did not receive the amount. He messaged Prashanth on his PhonePe number but didn’t get a response.

Police said the messages on Suresh’s PhonePe account were actually text messages typed by Prashanth. Further investigations revealed that he had earlier cheated a gold jeweller in Ramamurthy Nagar.

Police officials have now arrested him and also seized 10 grams of gold jewellery, 1.5 kg silver articles and a camera from him.