BHOPAL: A ruling BJP leader’s trader son was conned by a bunch of fraudsters, who while posing as sleuths of Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), allegedly extorted more than Rs 45 lakh from him over a period of eight long years.
While the alleged racket operating from Vidisha district of central Madhya Pradesh was busted by cops from southeastern MP’s Anuppur district police recently with the arrest of one of the accused, the victim 50-year-old Ashish Tamrakar, who is reportedly the son of a BJP leader Avdhesh Tamrakar in Kotma area of Anuppur district is yet to come out the long-drawn mental trauma.
“Despite being counselled thoroughly, he still believes that the tormentors will mentally harass him, demand more money and if the demands were not met, they would put him behind bars in some hawala business case,” a senior police officer from Anuppur district told the TNIE on Sunday.
Back in 2017, Ashish Tamrakar, who is into the business of electronic goods, got in touch with some men claiming to be working for an investment/stock broking firm (operating from Bhopal and Indore). They lured him with quick and high returns and made him invest around Rs 17 lakh. The money invested by him was possibly earned by him from futures trading.
A few months later, when he asked about the returns on his investment, they told him that they were CBI and ED sleuths, who had found that the money invested by him was actually sourced from hawala business.
They subsequently started harassing him and extorting money from him, which he deposited in multiple accounts. They extorted from him more than Rs 45 lakh, including the initial sum invested by him in 2017.
“They made him believe that they were actually from central investigation agencies, owing to which he didn’t gather the courage to report it to the police for eight years, despite his family telling him to stop making payments and report the entire matter to the police,” Anuppur district police superintendent M Rahman said on Sunday.
It was finally Ashish’s brother who shared the matter with the police at a public event around a month and half back, after which the police swung into action and ultimately busted the racket recently.
“Investigations revealed that the entire racket of fraudsters was operating from Vidisha district of MP. The kingpin of the racket was murdered in 2022 over some dispute related to financial dealings. Now another key member of the racket identified as was harassing and extorting money from Ashish. We’ve arrested him on Friday and he is in four days police remand. Our teams are searching for two more accused who too hail from Vidisha, but are currently on the run,” the SP-Anuppur added.
As per sources privy to the probe, the arrested man has told the police that if he is allowed to call Ashish even while being in police custody and demand money, he (Ashish) will immediately deposit the demand sum in the stipulated bank account out of fear of landing behind bars.
“He (Ashish) isn’t ready to believe us that they were fake CBI and ED sleuths, he is still afraid of them and apprehends more money will be demanded by them in the coming days,” a police officer said.
The police are not just carrying on searches to nab the two accused who are on the run, but also trying to find out from the arrested accused, how many more people have been duped and extorted by them in the past.