NEW DELHI: Delhi Police has arrested a 24-year-old BTech graduate from a reputed college in Mumbai for allegedly cheating people on the pretext of providing them tickets for the “Haj pilgrimage” at reasonable rates, an official said on Monday.
Identified as Md. Irfan, the accused was previously found involved in a similar case registered in Lucknow. In 2022, he came out on bail and again started committing crime.
DCP (northeast) Joy Tirkey said a 23-year-old man lodged a complaint in April this year stating that he came across an Instagram Profile in the name of Danish Travels, providing assistance for travel to Saudi Arabia for Hajj/Umrah at reasonable rates.
On clicking the link, he was directed to another profile from where he got a mobile number. On contacting the given number, the person on the other end, introduced himself as Danish who lured him in the trap.“He offered travel assistance for Umrah at Rs 80,000 per person, which was inclusive of flight tickets, 15 days stay at hotels in Saudi Arabia and Visa fee. The complainant fell in his trap and transferred Rs 48,000 as advance payment. He received his visa and three flight tickets to Qatar scheduled on April 20,” the DCP said.
On receiving the documents, the complainant paid him the balance amount of Rs 1,92,000 but on verifying from the airlines, the flight tickets were found to be fake. On contacting, alleged Danish informed that their tickets were cancelled by the airlines and he again booked their tickets for April 24 for which he charged Rs 43,000 from the complainant, claiming that the tickets’ fare were hiked by the airlines.
On further checking, the documents provided by accused were found to be fake, afterwhich the victim approached the police who then registered a case under relevant sections of law.
During investigation, a dedicated team was formed which mounted the technical surveillance and collected inputs from the technical as well manual sources.
Based on the gathered information, the team conducted a raid and nabbed the accused from Lucknow.
On interrogation, accused Md. Irfan admitted to his crime and revealed that he completed his B. Tech in computer science from a reputed college in Mumbai in the year 2020.
“In 2021, he started his own IT firm for promotions/publicity but during Covid- 19 lockdown, his firm was shut and he was looking for opportunities for earning easy money. Using his skills, he developed an App for disbursing loans and started cheating,” the DCP said.
He further expanded his business and floated two firms in the name of Danish Travels and Shadab Travels through social media platform Instagram and started cheating gullible people in the name of providing assistance for international tour & travels.
On further investigation, he was previously found arrested by Krishna Nagar police station, Lucknow, in a similar cheating case in which he came out on bail in 2022 and again started committing crime.