NEW DELHI: Three alleged conmen have been arrested in separate cases for duping people, police said on Friday.
The Economic Offences Wing has arrested a 51-year-old man for allegedly posing as an Indian Foreign Service officer and duping a businessman of Rs 2.4 crore on the pretext of securing business proposals under the Centre’s Make in India initiative.
The accused, Piyush Bandopadhyay, used to hold his meetings in five-star hotels and come in a beacon-fitted vehicle to impress his targets.
“To give an impression about his coveted status, he would get the phones of all visitors and clients deposited beforehand.
He would also drop names of senior government officials during business conversations while highlighting recent central government initiatives as if he had played an important role in policymaking,” additional commissioner (EOW) R K Singh said.
Bandopadhyay has been sent to judicial custody.
In another case, east Delhi Police and sleuths of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested an alleged imposter for posing as an anti-terror cell officer and duping and extorting people.
The accused has been identified as Neitak Rawat from Uttarakhand.
His father is a retired sub-inspector who was last posted with an intelligence agency.
Rawat’s fake ID card claiming him to be an NIA officer has been seized.
He did his MBA from Delhi University and had been living in Laxmi Nagar of east Delhi since many years.
The NIA had received a complaint from a woman who was targeted by the accused and roped in police to catch the accused.
In the third case, a popular singer on social media has been arrested for allegedly duping a 70-year-old man on the pretext of giving him a role in a movie, police said.
The accused has been identified as Jitender Mishra (36).
The incident was reported from Rani Bagh in northwest Delhi.
The victim, Ramesh Singh (name changed), always wanted to be an actor.
As a youth, he had tried to get into movies but couldn’t succeed, and worked in some Punjabi albums and a television serial as a junior artist.
Due to family pressure, Singh later started working for the railways.
But even after retirement, he couldn’t forget his dream and used to surf the net for an acting opportunity.
It was not long before he got conned of his savings by Mishra who posed as a casting director.
In February 2020, Singh saw a post on Facebook regarding castings for a movie producing company and posted his resume.
Some time later, he received a call from the “casting manager” who informed him that his resume had been selected for further audition.
Singh was duped of around Rs 4.8 lakh on the pretext of being given the lead role in a movie where an aged man falls in love with a young girl.
The caller said he needed to have an Artist Card and had to pay Rs 16,000 for it.
On different pretexts, Singh was made to shell out around Rs 4.8 lakh following which the accused had disappeared.
The accused told the cops that he had been duped by a stranger years ago in a similar fashion after which he decided to con others.
He has a YouTube channel and a Facebook page in the name of Deepu Pandit.