Tea seller at Mukherjee Nagar impersonates IPS officer, dupes people of over Rs 14 lakh

A 30-year-old man was arrested from Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh for allegedly impersonating an IPS officer on social media to cheat people, mostly women, police said on Monday.

The accused has been identified as Vikas Gautam, a Class 8 dropout. He is a resident of Gawalior, they said.

Gautam got obsessed with IAS/IPS aspirants who were taking coaching in Mukherjee Nagar, north Delhi where he was selling tea. He then posed as IPS officer Vikas Yadav on social media platforms and started cheating people, mostly women, a senior police officer said.

The accused has duped over 50 people of more than Rs 14 lakh. He also used his fake identity to get work done in different departments in lieu of monetary favours, police said.

A case was registered on Saturday on a complaint of a woman doctor working in Sanjay Gandhi Hospital. She alleged that a person with fake ID of IPS Vikas Yadav on social media became her friend. After a few days, he asked her to send Rs 25,000 to him on the pretext of treatment of her mother claiming she was suffering from a life threatening disease, the officer said.

During investigation, the location of the accused was tracked to Gwalior. Raids were conducted and he was nabbed, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Outer) Harendra Kumar Singh said.

On checking his mobile phone, social media accounts in the name of IPS Vikas Yadav and gmail ID ‘ipsvikashyadav9@gmail.com’ were found logged in, the DCP said.

According to police, Gautam studied up to Class 8 from Gwalior. In 2010, he enrolled himself in ITI (welder trade) in Gwalior. He came to Delhi and worked at a hotel in Mukherjee Nagar in front of a coaching institute for civil services and came in contact with many aspirants, police said.

After the UPSC results in 2020, Gautam changed his Instagram profile name to ‘Vikashyadav_ips’ and posted the ‘list of candidates selected’ on his Instagram profile, declaring his selection into UPSC, police said.

Gautam then came in contact with many high-profile persons through that fake ID of Vikas Yadav IPS and presently has 19,700 followers. He contacted people pretending to be under-trainee IPS officer and influenced them to get their work done and started taking money from them, they said.

He was previously involved in a cheating case in Gwalior, police added.