Indore (Madhya Pradesh): A man from Australia was allegedly duped of $ 1.77 lakh (about Rs 96 lakh) by a web developer from the city in the name of putting up the complainant's website on the Apple company's platform, and the accused also promised he would help the complainant in entering into an associate partnership with Apple.
On behalf of complainant Paul Sheppered from Australia, his attorney Rupesh Sharma stated in the complaint that Paul met the accused named Mayank Saluja through a website in 2018. Later, Saluja started working for Paul to develop a web application for video calling/conference.
The accused made a web application and a website http://screenpresentations.com.au for the complainant. However, the web application was not working effectively, so Mayank told Paul that things would start working if the website was put on Apple company's platform. Mayank told Paul that for this he would need to enter into an associate partnership with Apple company. Mayank told Paul that he has a friend Atharva who is in a senior position at Apple and he would help in this regard. He kept on taking money from Paul for executing these works.
Advocate Gagan Bajad, who will be fighting the case in India for Paul, told Free Press that he was contacted by complainant Paul through the internet and he has evidence of being duped by Mayank. Bajad said Mayank took money from Paul on various pretexts; like buying shares (which he never delivered to Paul), starting an NGO (for which he never presented any documents) getting Paul's PAN card made (for which he did nothing). Bajad said all the promises made by Mayank were false. Bajad said that the 'friend' Atharva that Mayank referred to is fictitious and had been conjured up to extract money from Paul.
Bajad added that Paul, who is an accountant, is suffering from a serious disease.
Annapurna police station in-charge Gopal Parmar said that a written complaint was received and the investigation is on to know further about the case.
