PUNE: A cellphone shop owner's greed cost him Rs4 lakh. He thought he was getting a great deal — Rs4 lakh for over 33,000 US dollars. Instead, he was left holding a bag containing soap and old newspapers.
By that point, on January 14, Vishal
Gaikwad realized he had been
duped and lodged a complaint against three men at the
Yerawada police station. A case has been registered under Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code.
Assistant inspector S D
Marode said around a week ago, a man had come to Gaikwad's shop posing as a customer.
"Over the course of the interaction, the man told Gaikwad that he had 1,673 notes of the 20 US dollar denomination and wanted to convert them into Indian currency," Marode said.
The notes — worth 33,460 US dollars — would have been worth more than Rs21 lakh. "The man told Gaikwad he was ready to sell them for much cheaper," Marode said.
According to Marode, the suspect convinced Gaikwad to take all the notes. "He even gave him a 20-dollar note and told him to have it examined by someone," Marode said.
Gaikwad found that the note was genuine and decided to purchase the rest for Rs4 lakh. "On January 14, the suspects called Gaikwad to
Pote Vasti in Yerawada to collect a bag containing dollars," Marode said.
Gaikwad reached Pote Vasti around 7pm and saw the suspect with two other men. "They took him to a secluded spot, took cash and handed him a bag," he said.
The suspects made a hasty exit. When Gaikwad opened the bag, he found a handkerchief covering its contents. "He found just a soap bar and a bundle of old newspapers," Marode said.
Representative Image
