Navy sailor duped of Rs 1.4 lakh in online fraud

KOLKATA: An Indian Navy sailor has alleged he was conned out of around Rs 1.4 lakh after he tried to buy a second-hand scooterette on an online classified advertisement platform. Asked to pay through a money wallet, the complaint, Anil Sanap, was tricked into paying twice for the same two-wheeler that was never delivered to him, police said.
Sanap, a resident of West Port near Strand Road, alleged the accused had introduced himself as “army officer Saikat Boral”. Cops from the West Port police station, who have registered a case, said the accused came across an old hand at cheating and that several documents used to operate his accounts appeared fake.
“The victim claimed that before June 16, the accused person, who posed as an army officer and introduced himself as Saikat Boral, contacted him, apparently with the purpose of selling his old scooterette on OLX. The complainant paid Rs 1,36,729 through Phone Pe on multiple occasions to different accounts to buy the two-wheeler. The accused dishonestly and fraudulently cheated the complainant for their wrongful gain. Investigation of the case has begun,” stated the FIR. Various charges of cheating has been slapped on the accused.
The first organized fraud on these platforms was detected in Kolkata in 2015, when a marine engineer was arrested on the charge of defrauding a youth of Rs 34,000 through a fake advertisement on another online classified advertisement platform, Quikr. The accused, Partha Mazumdar (30), held a bogus two-week training programme for those who responded to his advertisement and handed them fake appointment letters for jobs in leading private banks, police said.
“These kinds of frauds are on the rise. We receive multiple complaints every month. Though the number is still a fraction compared to that of bank frauds, we hope to stop this from becoming a nuisance,” said an officer.