BENGALURU: Central Crime Branch sleuths have arrested a 39-year-old conman who duped unemployed youth by promising government jobs after claiming he was the deputy commissioner of a central agency. Police said that he cheated more than 18 job aspirants across the state of more than Rs 1 crore.
The accused has been identified as Raghavendra Poojari, a resident of Basaruru village in Kundapura in Udupi. He had come to Bengaluru after passing Class 10 and was staying in JP Nagar for about 10 years.
A senior police officer from CCB said that based on a complaint filed by one of the victims in Banashankari police station, the CCB took over the case and nabbed Poojari.
Police said he travelled across the state to target unemployed youth and offered them government jobs in various departments. He used a fake ID card stating that he was deputy commissioner of the survey department and collected between Rs 4 lakh and Rs 12 lakh from each victim depending upon the job he offered.
With the ill-gotten money he had purchased a house in his hometown, a hotel in Tumkur, a flat in Kengeri and gold valuables worth several lakh. Police recovered the property documents of his assets and took him into custody for further investigation, the police officer added.
During the interrogation, Poojari said that he was working as an assistant for an officer in the survey department in his village. When the officer retired, he became jobless and decided to move to Bengaluru. He started meeting unemployed people and offering jobs, claiming he holds a high rank in the department.
If the victims did not have money, he used to demand cheques as security and after a few days he would threaten to file cheque bounce cases against them. He also threatened to kill the victims if they demanded their money back or approached the police.
Poojari married three times and left two wives after harassing them soon after the marriage. His third wife has gone to Bagalakote for delivery, the police officer said.