BHUBANESWAR : Police have arrested a Bihar native for allegedly posing as an Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) employee and cheating a businessman of Rs 19.97 lakh on the promise of facilitating him to open a petrol pump in Biridi area of Jagatsinghpur.
The accused, Satish Kumar of Nawada district in Bihar, was brought to Odisha on Saturday night. The Cyber Crime and Economic Offence police station had received a complaint from Sarada Prasan Routray, a businessman of Bhotapada in this connection on May 2.
As per the complainant, he had been looking to open a petrol pump and browsing the internet to get information on the same. While searching online, he had come across a fake website https://www.petrolpumpdealerchayan.in/petrol-2023/ where the scamsters impersonated themselves as employees of IOCL, and assured to help him open a petrol pump in his wife’s name at Biridi.
The cyber fraudsters even used a fake website - iocl@petrolpumpvitrakchayan.com to communicate with the complainant. Without realising that it was a scam, Routray allegedly deposited six cheques amounting to Rs 19.97 lakh between January 29 and April 25.
However, he later developed a suspicion over the entire process and visited the IOCL office where Routray realised that he had been duped by the fraudsters. “All the cheques were issued in the name of IOCL. However, the accused had provided mule account numbers to Routray,” said Bhubaneswar DCP, Jagmohan Meena.
Police said neither the bank nor the complainant verified if the accounts indeed belonged to IOCL. “The banks and the customers should verify the names on the cheques and the accounts where the money is being transferred to find out if they are same or not,” said Cyber crime and Economic Offence police station ACP, Akshaya Kumar Nayak.