Vadodara: Man arrested for cheating accountant of more than Rs 3 crore

VADODARA: The cybercrime sleuths arrested a man for duping an accountant of Rs 3.73 crore in the city. The accused identified as Bharat Patel made fake email accounts of various courts and sent emails to complainant Natvar Gosai over the last few years.
According to the police, Gosai was fighting several legal battles over property disputes in his family. He came in contact with Patel some years ago and the latter offered Gosai to settle his cases. Patel told Gosai that he knows a lawyer who can settle all the disputes without charging any fee.
But Patel soon started demanding money from Gosai under different pretexts and siphoned Rs 20 lakh. The accused then told Gosai that the case was to be filed in Gujarat high court and asked for the fees. Patel made a fake email id in the name of the high court and sent emails to Gosai’s son.
The accused also made fake email ids of Supreme Court, Vadodara sessions court and district collector and asked for money to buy stamp papers and pay court fees. Gosai gave away over Rs 3.73 crore in installments to Patel in the last four years. Patel then told Gosai that he had been sentenced to two years of imprisonment by the Supreme Court.
The accused also demanded another Rs 6 lakh from Gosai by claiming that if the complainant did not pay it, all the money he had paid till date would be seized. Patel also sent a fake message to Gosai by posing as a crime branch official and told him that an arrest warrant had been issued in his name. Gosai then got suspicious and approached the cybercrime sleuths.
The cybercrime cops arrested Patel when he came to meet Gosai to collect the money. The police are now investigating if any other person is involved in the crime.