SAMBALPUR: Sambalpur Cyber Crime and Economic Offences (CC & EO) police on Friday forwarded to court three siblings for allegedly cheating a bank official of Rs 25 lakh by luring him with a fake Facebook profile and promising him double his investment through a purported currency printing/doubling machine.
Police identified the accused as Jharana Badi (38), Rajesh Badi (32) and Rajkumari Badi (24), originally from Babupada in Jharsuguda district. The two sisters, Jharana and Rajkumari, and their brother, Rajesh, were staying in a rented house at Singpali under Ainthapali police limits in Sambalpur.
Sambalpur SP Mukesh Kumar Bhamoo told the media the accused learnt techniques of deception through YouTube and used them to gain the victim’s confidence before executing the fraud.
The case came to light after Lipak Kumar Pradhan, a Rourkela-based branch manager of a private insurance company, approached the CC & EO police on June 29 and alleged that the accused contacted him through a fake Facebook profile in the name of ‘Disha Agrawal’. After establishing a rapport with Pradhan, she reeled him in to invest. The face on the account was Jharana’s, police said.
“The accused first established contact with the victim through a fake Facebook identity and gradually gained his confidence. Then she called him to a hotel in Sambalpur and convinced him to invest in the purported money-doubling process in presence of the co-accused,” Bhamoo said.
Convinced by the demonstration, Pradhan reportedly withdrew Rs 25 lakh from a home loan account and travelled to Angul, where he met the accused at a hotel.
The accused then allegedly executed a bag-swapping trick. According to the police, they distracted Pradhan by saying a USB drive and motorcycle keys had been left behind, and used the opportunity to replace the bag containing the cash with an identical bag containing bundles of notepads. They fled as Pradhan kept waiting at the hotel. A few days after the incident, Pradhan lodged a complaint with the cyber police. Police traced the accused to their rented accommodation at Singpali on Thursday night and arrested them.
Police seized Rs 15.50 lakh in cash, gold and silver ornaments valued at around Rs 12 lakh, 20 mobile phones, a laptop, a tablet, a scooter, fake Aadhaar cards and other articles. Police said some of the jewellery had allegedly been purchased with the proceeds of the fraud, while some items were mortgaged by the accused and had been released from a finance firm.
The police also seized a Blu-ray machine allegedly used as a purported currency-printing/doubling machine.
“Preliminary investigation revealed the accused allegedly cheated another person in Rourkela of Rs 10 lakh using a similar modus operandi. The three accused will be brought on remand for questioning and investigation into their links with other fraud cases and how they used the machine to deceive people,” Bhamoo said.
