Engineer duped with ‘black dollars’

The accused,Evan Tony alias Franklyn (38),had duped mechanical engineer Ravi Mogra of Rs 15 lakh earlier this month,they said.

The victim,the son of a DTC bus conductor,had sold his house to raise money for the lottery,police said.

“Tony used to run a fake lucky draw on the Internet and had announced Mogra as the winner of Rs 12 crore. Mogra first met Tony and paid him Rs 15,000 as custom clearance charges for the delivery of the consignment of lottery money. He remained in touch with Tony and his aides through emails,deposited around Rs 15 lakh for processing charges to receive the lottery prize,” said DCP (South) Chhaya Sharma.

She added,Mogra was given letters,purportedly issued from the RBI,to convince him to make these payments to Tony. He deposited around Rs 5 lakh in various accounts of different persons as he was instructed and had paid Rs 10 lakhs in cash.

The complainant was called to a Bangalore hotel,where Tony handed him an iron safe containing ‘black dollars’,worth Rs 12 crores,claiming they were coated with chemicals.

“Tony cleaned the sample notes in Mogra’s presence with a chemical required to clean all the notes. He also said since the chemical had ‘dried up’,he needed to go to his country’s embassy in Mumbai. The complainant returned with the safe and waited for the chemical to arrive,” Sharma said.

When Tony asked Mogra Rs 23 lakhs for the chemical,Mogra became suspicious and decided to break open the safe and found several bundles of black powder-coated plastic paper. He then alerted police about it.