Gang of four held for duping WR staffer of Rs 90,000

The Azad Maidan police station nabbed a gang of four men earlier this month for allegedly cheating a senior Western Railways official of Rs 90,000 last May. The accused tricked the railway official into signing up for an insurance policy and then gave him a pen with easily erasable ink to sign a cheque. The accused then allegedly erased all writing on the cheque, leaving only the complainant’s signature. The arrested accused have been identified as Anil Karelia (33) of Borivali, Manoj Kumar (20) and Amit Sharma (21) of Ghaziabad and Nitin Chauhan (20), the alleged mastermind from Noida in UP.

The police said Karelia would browse through online job portals to build a database of potential targets and send them to Chauhan. “Chauhan would call these people from his office in Noida and pose as a representative of an insurance firm. He would offer returns of Rs 1.9 lakh for a customer who deposited Rs 1,000 a month. The accused would dupe people with the promise of doubling their money,” said sub-inspector Ganesh Dalvi of Azad Maidan police station.