The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Crime Branch on Friday arrested two fraudsters on charges of cheating over Rs 1 crore from a businessman by impersonating as an IAS officer and a Public Works Department (PWD) staff, respectively.
The accused were identified as Suryamani Tripathy of Cuttack and Amit Kumar of Bhubaneswar.
While Suryamani was working as a clerk in the office of the Directorate of Technical Education and Training (DTET) in Cuttack, Amit is unemployed. The duo was nabbed based on the complaint filed by Rikab Chand Manot alias Mukesh Jain, the proprietor of New-Delhi based Rashtriya Stainless Steel.
The firm also has its branch office at Bhubaneswar which is managed by Mukesh’s son Akshay. The accused used Odisha Niwas in New Delhi to strike deal and gain trust of the victims.
They had also saved the mobile phone numbers of senior IAS, IPS, OAS officers and Judges on their phones to impress people, EOW officials said.
EOW officials said that the complainant had initially come in contact with one Rajesh Gahlot who introduced himself as an officer of RAW having connections with several IAS officers in Odisha.
It is alleged that Rajesh introduced the businessman father and son to the accused Suryamani by identifying him as an Additional Secretary in the Works Department in 2017.
“The businessman and his son were promised high value Government contracts under the Pradhan Mantri Yojana in Odisha.
The fraud came to light after Suryamani issued a fake letter, purportedly signed by the Accounts Officer EIC (Civil) Nirman Soudha to a private bank for transfer of Rs 4.68 crore to the company of the complainant towards payment of 20 per cent advance against the work order.
EOW officials said that the complainant started to doubt when no work order was issued and sought RTI about the accused persons. Later on finding that all documents including treasury receipts were fake, the complainant registered a case in connection with fraud.
“Several fake orders, agreements, treasury receipts have been seized and it is suspected that the accused might have cheated other persons also,” the EOW said.
