Three persons have been arrested for allegedly cheating a woman to the tune of Rs 3 lakh on the pretext of providing her $5,000, the police said on Sunday.
DCP Ankit Singh said that the arrested individuals have been identified as Meeraj Alam, Guddu and Rafiq.
All had studied till Class 5, and were running a racket of selling “dollar bills” to the well-off persons.
The police said that they received a complaint in this regard from one Kamini, a resident of Punjab.
The women mentioned in the complaint that she was cheated in the name of exchanging dollars with Indian currency.
Kamini said that she had received calls earlier in December from an unknown mobile number from Delhi. The caller identified himself as Ajay a.k.a. Rahul, who lured her into exchanging 5,000 USD in lieu of Rs 3,00,000.
Later, she reached Delhi and contacted Ajay.
She was directed to come at a certain location. On reaching there, Ajay along with his friend showed her $20 bills.
On being satisfied, she withdrew Rs 300,000 from different bank ATMs and gave it to the accused.
Immediately after the exchange, Ajay and his friend fled the spot which raised suspicion.
On checking the bundle, she realised some pieces of newspapers wrapped around a washing soap bar were given to her.
She then approached the police and lodged an FIR.
“With the help of technical surveillance and CCTV footage, we identified the accused. On December 23, we conducted raids and nabbed Meeraj Alam and Guddu from Loni in Uttar Pradesh. The mobile phone used in the commission of crime was also recovered from their possession,” said the police officer.
They confessed to their crime and revealed that they along with their two more associates committed the crime.
Later, one of their associates Rafiq was also apprehended.
The police is making efforts to arrest their fourth associate and recover the cash.
