Indore (Madhya Pradesh): A conman duped an MP Online shop operator of Rs 2 lakh by posing as a cloth merchant under Dwarkapuri police station limit on Friday. He left behind his servant with a bag full of fake currency notes as collateral. The fraudster also escaped with the shop operator’s bike but was later arrested. According to the police, one Harish Patidar, a resident of Kundan Nagar lodged a complaint with Dwarkapuri police stating that he owns a MP online shop on Bilsy Karkhana Road.
Two individuals came to his shop on a sports bike around 6 pm on Friday. They introduced themselves as Akash Thakur and Lalit Rajput and claimed to be cloth merchant and his servant, respectively. Akash requested Harish to transfer Rs 2 lakh to another merchant’s account, explaining that he had cash in his bag but needed to transfer the money online.
After Harish transferred the money, Akash asked him whether he could use his bike as he needed to go to relieve himself and left his servant Lalit and the bag as an assurance. Harish handed over his bike key to Akash. When he did not return for a long time Lalit and Harish tried to contact Akash telephonically, but in vain. Harish became suspicious and checked the bag and found bundles of fake notes.
He took Lalit to the police station who revealed that he had been employed by Akash only a few days ago and had limited information about him. Lalit said that the bike on which they came to the shop belonged to him. Police managed to freeze the account the money was being transferred to which belonged to another MP Online operator in the MIG area.
The police traced Akash to Malviya Nagar after tracking his mobile phone. The second MP Online operator, whose account was frozen, cooperated with the police to lure Akash and police arrested him. Later, it came to light that his real name is Rajesh Jatav. Further investigation revealed that Rajesh had previously committed similar frauds, duping other shop operators of significant amounts. He had duped a grocery shop owner of Rs 1.5 lakh, another person in Khajrana of Rs 75,000 and another MP online operator of Rs 50,000.
