Bengaluru: Man cheats BPO staff of Rs 40 lakh over car auction

BENGALURU: A group of BPO employees and their friends have lost Rs 40 lakh to a suspended excise department clerk, who promised them seized cars at cheap rates in public auction. Police said the conman lost the ill-gotten money in cricket betting.
Thirty-five-year-old Jeevan CP, from Kushalanagar in Kodagu district, was reportedly suspended for allegedly misusing office funds last year. Cybercrime police arrested him in the first week of March. They found out that five more persons, most of them related to cricket betting mafia in Mysuru and Madikeri, were involved in the case. Police are making efforts to nab them.

According to police, Jeevan informed Amjad, a signboard artist from Somwarpet in Kodagu district, that excise officials had seized 260 cars during the 2018 assembly elections which would be sold in auction. He assured Amjad a Maruti Alto for Rs 80,000.
Amjad made an advance of Rs 20,000, and informed his brother-in-law Sadiq Pasha, a BPO employee and resident of Marathahalli, Bengaluru, about it. “I was excited, told my friends and colleagues. Jeevan said the auction will take place on November 29, 2018. All of us paid him Rs 5,62,500 for nine cars. Jeevan informed us on November 27 that the auction was postponed to December 10. We paid him more for more vehicles — in all, we paid Rs 39.72 lakh for 49 cars. He assured us an Innova car for Rs 4 lakh,” Sadiq Pasha told TOI.
Jeevan later told Pasha and others that the auction had been postponed to December 27, and then informed them that it was cancelled due to procedural lapses. “Jeevan agreed to return the money, but didn’t. We rushed to Kushalanagar and traced him. He admitted to using the money for personal needs and sought time to pay us. Hence, we approached cops,” Sadiq said.
Investigations said Jeevan’s friends had created fake receipts, which were issued to those who made deposits for the auction. Jeevan is now in judicial custody.
Police identified the other accused as Mahesh K, 38, and Pramod S, 21, from Periyapatna; Raju S, 32, and Basavaraj S, 37, from Saraswatipuram in Mysuru. “A few of them secured anticipatory bail recently. Our probe says cricket betting mafia was involved in the case. We’ll know its role once we record the statements of the other accused,” a police officer said.