Mumbai: The Mumbai Police Crime Branch unearthed a ‘rice puller’ racket, in which a Malad-based man was duped of Rs 10 lakh on the pretext of investing in a company, who were allegedly asked to pay taxes worth Rs 20 crore to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in order to claim Rs 39,000 crore earned by selling Copper Iridium used in rice pullers.
Police received a tip-off that a few people that a gang that duped foreign nationals in the name of investing to claim money stuck in the RBI, were going to come in the city. Accordingly police laid a trap near a hotel, where the foreign investor was staying.
The accused men called the complainant to make the payment, when the latter said come inside the hotel room. However the accused denied and asked him to come out of the hotel.
After the complainant met the accused people, he asked them to produce the documents that verified their money was stuck in the RBI and that they were asked to pay tax to claim Rs 39,000. The documents looked genuine, after which he alerted the police and the accused were arrested.
The arrested accused, identified as Basawaraj Talwar, 36, Santosh Suryakumar, Mohan Jaychandrappa and Guruvahan Singh, 48. Police found out during probe that they had mentioned the money pooled in the bank account was for rare product of British India, which was forged with a RBI letter head. Police booked the accused under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and are investigating further.
