A 24-year-old man was arrested for allegedly cheating people by showing fake text message of money transfer to their accounts on the pretext of buying costly gadgets from them.
In April, a new app ‘False Text Message’ was launched and the accused, Rishi Kapoor, started using the app to dupe people.
Deputy Commissioner of Police, south district, Ishwar Singh, said, “He used to show fake text message from bank regarding a particular amount being debited from his account and getting transferred to the seller’s account.”
Kapoor revealed that he had cheated people of 28-30 iPhones and four Apple Macbooks. He used to call the sellers of costly gadgets who had given advertisements on portals like OlX, Quikr, etc. After finalising the price, he used to take the gadget by showing or forwarding a fake message of money transfer, he said.
In June, one Nisha Gajwani approached police with a complaint that one a person named Rishi visited her house for purchasing her laptop after seeing an advertisement on a portal, they added.
Kapoor told her that he had transferred the money online in her account and showed her a text message showing Rs 45,000 being transferred to her account and bought the laptop. later, she found that the money had not been credited to her account and approached police.
During investigation, the police team obtained call detail records of Kapoor and it was found that he was shuttling between Delhi and Mumbai frequently.
On the intervening night of September 3 and 4, Kapoor was arrested from Mayur Vihar, said the DCP. Ten debit and credit cards of different banks, a branded wrist watch and a mobile phone were recovered from him.
He also claimed to have cheated his girlfriends for their cash and jewellery articles on one or the other pretext and later deserted them. He was planning to escape to the US since he has many cases registered against him in Mumbai and Delhi. Kapoor is also wanted in four cases of cheating in Mumbai.
He was first arrested in lucknow in 2011 in a theft case. After being released on bail, his parents got him admitted to HIMT College for Merchant Navy Training at Chennai in 2011 but he returned to lucknow in January 2012 and started gambling, said the officer.
In October, 2012, Kapoor’s father got him admitted to CAE Oxford Aviation Academy, Gondia, Maharashtra for commercial pilot training but he left the course in between and came to Kishangarh, Delhi because his family had shifted here, he added. Subsequently, he left home and got into horse betting and in the process, also cheated his girlfriends. From 2014, he along with three others, including two women, started cheating people on the pretext of getting them jobs in different airlines.
He had duped at least 25-30 people and had collected Rs 70 lakh. After police started looking for them, they shifted to Hyderabad. His woman accomplice was arrested by the Mumbai Police in November 2015 from her flat in Hyderabad while the accused fled from there with Rs 20 lakh to Kolkata, said the officer.
While the Mumbai Police were on the lookout for him, he got his bail cancelled in the lucknow case in February, 2016. Since the Mumbai Police did not get issued production warrants against the accused, he gave fresh surety for bail and came out of lucknow jail in April 2016.