NAGPUR: As a Std IX student, Rahul Sarate got away unpunished after hacking his school principal’s computer.
Sarate, now 27, and living in Mumbai, has been accused of duping a city chemist of Rs30,000 by posing as a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officer.
He had used a similar trick to cheat chemists in Mumbai before being caught.
Bajaj Nagar police arrested him from Colaba police custody recently and brought him to Nagpur.
Bajaj Nagar police station senior PI Shubhangi Deshmukh told TOI that Sarate, a former merchant navy staffer, had committed at least eight similar offences.
Deshmukh said Sarate was glib-tongued and could speak in different voices – even a female voice.
He chose his targets carefully, and would accordingly pose either as a FDA officer, official from consumer forum, or even a female customer.
Shashank Agrawal, whose chemist shop is situated in Dhantoli, lodged a complaint earlier this month about being duped of Rs30,000.
Agrawal said that on May 29 he received a phone call from Sarate, who posed as an FDA official using the pseudonym Swapnil Bhosle.
The accused told Agrawal that a customer (again a fictitious identity), Surekha Patil, had lodged a complaint against the shop owner of selling medicines that were beyond expiry date.
The accused threatened to arrest him and seal his shop.
Sometime later, Agrawal received another phone call – this time from Surekha Patil.
Initially, she threatened Agrawal that the FDA will seal his shop.
After Agrawal’s repeated requests to her against taking the complaint any further, she offered a settlement if he agreed to deposit Rs30,000 in a particular bank account.
Agrawal deposited the amount.
However, Agrawal sensed something fishy and on June 12 he lodged a complaint with Bajaj Nagar police station.
Before Nagpur city police could arrest him, Colaba police had already arrested Sarate after a similar complaint was filed against him on June 7.
Deshmukh said Sarate used different SIM cards and simple mobile phones to make calls to his targets.
Even the bank account he used to make gullible targets deposit ‘settlement money’ wasn’t his and belongs to one Swapnil Patil, the investigation revealed.
Deshmukh said, “When Sarate was in the ninth standard, he had committed his first crime.
He hacked the school principal’s computer to give himself more marks in examination but was caught.
As he was a minor, the school let him off with a warning.
After procuring some technical qualifications, he worked for some years in the merchant navy.” Sarate got married and settled down in Mumbai.
Later, he took to making easy money and started duping chemists posing as an FDA officer.
“Given his criminal antecedents, Sarate’s relatives, including father, who works as a sanitary worker in Pune, his mother and sister – a medical practitioner – distanced themselves from him.
Even his relationship with his wife was not cordial,” said Deshmukh.
On Friday, the district court remanded Sarate to judicial custody.