SAMBALPUR: Police arrested a 23-year-your old youth from Faridabad in Haryana for duping a Sambalpur-based businessman of Rs 28 lakh by promising to supply him face masks. Police have also seized a mobile phone, more than 10 SIM cards, ATM cards of different banks and Rs 10 lakh from the possession of the accused.
According to police, the accused, Jatin Sehgal, of Jain Nagar of Rohini in New Delhi, duped one Manoj Kumar Barado, 36, of Sunapali under Dhanupali police limits in Sambalpur city. Barado, who has import/export business, was allegedly cheated of the amount by Sehgal through e-transaction. The incident took place in May last year and a case in this connection was lodged on June 16, 2020, police said.
Addressing a news conference here on Friday, inspector general of police, northern range, Narasingha Bhol, said, “It is an e-commerce fraud. The accused created a fake Facebook account and claimed to have run a company, LED Rental, which deals in masks. He had also mentioned on Facebook that the company’s office was in Gurgaon, Haryana.
He had also posted an advertisement on the fake Facebook account. The victim, Barado, noticed the advertisement and came in contact with the accused.”
Bhol added, “Barado expressed his willingness to buy face masks in bulk quantity and deposited Rs 3 lakh in an account given by the accused.
Subsequently, with an intention to extract more money from the victim, the accused prepared a false invoice of a courier company to create trust in the mind of the victim that he would supply the face masks from a firm in Malaysia through inter-mediatory firms in Oman, Dubai and Muscat.”
This had instilled faith in the victim and he further deposited Rs 25 lakh through PhonePe.