It has emerged that the two men who allegedly posed as income tax and department of revenue intelligence (DRI) officers to dupe Bollywood actors Varun Dhawan, Tiger Shroff and Shraddha Kapoor, were pl
It has emerged that the two men who allegedly posed as income tax and department of revenue intelligence (DRI) officers to dupe Bollywood actors Varun Dhawan, Tiger Shroff and Shraddha Kapoor, were planning to use the same method to loot a few designers too.
Officials are also likely to call the personal assistants of the duped actors for interrogation.
According to officials, the accused had been threatening several, actors, businessmen, and designers posing as IT commissioner or DRI commissioner. To make it believable, the conmen had saved their names on true caller application as ‘additional director general’ and ‘income tax commisioner’.
The complainant is a businessman. On May 5, he was out of Mumbai and received phone calls from a local number. As he did not pick up the calls, he received a text message from the caller claiming he was an income tax commissioner. The complainant then returned the call and the person who attended it said he was an income tax commissioner and his name was Anil Kumar. To establish relationship with the businessman he said a friend wanted to see film-shooting. The complainant obliged,” said Vinayak Vast, senior PI of AEC.
Mr Vast added, “On May 23, the complainant received a text message informing him the DRI was planning a raid at his place. It further told the complainant not to worry and that the raid could be cancelled if he forked out Rs 50 lakh. The complainant got suspicious and filed a complaint against the accused.”
The two eventually settled on a deal for Rs 5 lakh. The anti-extortion cell laid a trap and when the accused came to collect his money arrested him.
“During interrogation the accused revealed that he had extorted money from some actors and was planning to extort from some Bollywood designers also. The accused were involved in betting and gambling and extorted money from people to finance the same. The accused had started this con five months ago and extorted more than 15 people. If needed we will call the PA of actors who were cheated for interrogation.”
