Six arrested for duping Delhi man of Rs 2.50 lakh in courier fraud

New Delhi: Six people were arrested for allegedly duping a man from the national capital of around Rs 2.50 lakh by claiming an international courier that was being probed by Mumbai Police was booked in his name, officials said on Sunday.

The fraudsters asked him to make the payment to avoid legal hassle, Delhi Police officials said.

The accused were identified as Vishal Joshi (24), an engineer from Delhi, and five other graduates – Ansh (24) and Samarth (23) from Haryana, Pranjal Kumar Sahni (24), from UP, Satender Dhaka (29) from MP, and Vedant Prabhkar Nagarkar (26) from Maharashtra.

“On April 29, complainant Deepanshu Vaid of Vasundhra Enclave here reported that he received a call from an unknown number, with the caller impersonating as an employee of an international courier of Mumbai branch,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (east) Apoorva Gupta said.

The caller claimed that a parcel containing passports, bank cards, clothes, a laptop, some cash and drugs had been booked using Vaid’s Aadhaar card and phone number.

“Later, the call was allegedly transferred to Mumbai Cyber Police. Under the pretext of saving him from legal entanglement, the caller cheated him of Rs 2.49 lakh,” the DCP said.

Investigation revealed that Vaid’s payment was credited to the account of a private bank in Rohtak, Haryana belonging to Ansh.

Between April 29 and April 30, Rs 3.20 crores was credited to Ansh’s account and later transferred to other accounts, she said.

“The bank was informed on April 30 after police received the complaint, and Rs 38.23 lakh was frozen in the account,” said the DCP.

Ansh and his associate Samarth were apprehended from Mayur Vihar here, she added.

Ansh disclosed that he and Samarth had lost Rs 30 lakhs in cryptocurrency trading, after which they came in contact with Pranjal Sahni, who promised the duo profits if they provided their bank account details, police said.

Pranjal was arrested from Lucknow and a mobile phone along with documents of Ansh and Samarth were recovered in his possession, police said.

During interrogation, Pranjal disclosed that he and his associate Ashutosh had visited Udaipur, Rajasthan where they provided bank details of Ansh and Samarth to a person, she added.

According to police, Rs 3.20 crore of fraud money was credited to Ansh’s bank account, which was later transferred to other accounts. Pranjal Sahni received a sum of about Rs 6.24 lakh as commission, police said.

Satender Dhaka, who provided Ansh’s bank account details to others for the fraud, was also arrested later in Delhi using his Telegram account, DCP Gupta said.

He revealed another Telegram ID which was operating from Maharashtra, leading police to Vedant Prabhakar Nagarkar who was apprehended from Panvel in Maharashtra.

Nagarkar’s arrest led to Vishal Joshi. All accused used Ansh’s account for the fraud, the DCP said.