Odisha woman professor falls victim to online shopping fraud

New Delhi: Delhi Police has arrested a 27-year-old man in the capital for allegedly cheating people on the pretext of a lucky draw in online shopping.

Police said that the accused along with his associates used to hire and train undergraduate boys and girls for making outbound calls to their targets and luring them for shopping from their website.

The accused has been identified as Deepak Negi who is a native of Tehri, Uttarakhand and was living in Delhi’s Sangam Vihar.

According to Chinmoy Biswal, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), South East district, in May, a complaint was received from a woman, who is a professor in a university in Odisha against an e-commerce company – key4kart.com – with its office in Kalkaji area.

“The complainant alleged that in April, 2018 she received a call from the shopping company who induced her to shop on their online platform. Thereafter, the victim purchased clothes for Rs 1,299 through online shopping. When the victim received the product, she found it was substandard and fake,” said the DCP.

“Subsequently, a mail was received by the victim congratulating her for winning a Royal Enfield bike in a lucky draw. She was asked to submit some percentage of the prize value along with her photo and Aadhaar ID following which she deposited around Rs 62,000 through net banking but no prize was sent to the victim as promised,” said the DCP.

A First Information Report (FIR) was registered and investigation was taken up. During investigation, no company was found on the registered address. Police analysed the data collected from various agencies and door-to-door survey was conducted to gather clues about the alleged company which led to the apprehension of the accused Deepak Negi, from B-Block in Kalkaji where he was running his office in the name of another company, he said.

“During interrogation, the accused revealed that in order to earn quick money he alongwith his associates Parmeshwar, Manmohan, Bharat Lalwani and Ansh Lalwani had formed the company.

“The accused used to defraud victims all over the country. Victims were lured by high-end gifts. Since the value of gifts would be higher than the amount being charged, victims ended up paying the company.

“The accused used to get the money transferred through various e-wallets and on perusal of the bank records, more than Rs 1.5 crore were collected in the past one year by the accused. Once the payment was done, no gifts were sent to the victims,” said the DCP.

A manhunt has been launched to nab the associates of the accused.

(IANS)