Mumbai: 4 held for duping woman with fake Rs 55k cr metal sale tale

Four persons were arrested in Mumbai for allegedly duping a woman by claiming they had earned Rs 55,000 crore from selling a precious metal to a Canada-based firm, and she could have a 40 per cent share in the transaction by paying Rs 27 crore in tax to the RBI, a police official said on Friday.

These people had told the woman the foreign exchange department of the RBI had frozen the transaction and Rs 27 crore was needed to get the amount released, he said.

"Bhaskarrao Yesugopu, Arindam Atindrakumar Dey, Rajvindra Mehra, Sumit Kamal Punjabi and Niyaz alias Kabir, had created bogus documents to show their links with RBI, DRDO, Ministry of Defence, BARC, Automic Energy Regulatory Board, ISRO, RAW etc," he said.

"The complainant woman met Yesupogu at a hotel in Juhu on Wednesday, where he told her about receiving of 6.7 billion euros after selling a precious metal to a Canada-based company. He told her to pay Rs 27 crore for 40 per cent share. She paid Rs 30,000 as an initial amount and promised to pay the rest by Thursday in Bhandup," he added.

After her friends told her this was a scam and that she had been cheated, the woman approached Bhandup police and a case was registered under IPC sections 420, 465, 467, 468, 471, 120 (B) and 34 of IPC.

On Thursday, Crime Branch Unit 7 laid a trap and apprehended Yesugopu and three others, the official said.