The Dindoshi police has nabbed a man and a woman who allegedly duped a developer of Rs 51.5 lakh on the pretext of selling him lavish cars.
The Dindoshi police has nabbed a man and a woman who allegedly duped a developer of Rs 51.5 lakh on the pretext of selling him lavish cars. The accused have been identified as Puja Kumar (26) and a Nigerian Mark John Chebuchi Unbuchi (35) while Xavier Fernandes, the suspected mastermind, is on the run and a police search is on to nab him.
The police is unsure of Fernandes’s nationality“Their modus operandi was to put out an advertisement to sell a BMW or other high-end cars on OLX, a popular online classifieds marketplace for used products. After finding a buyer, they used to tell him or her to deposit money in their account,” said a senior official from the Dindoshi police station.
According to the sources from Dindoshi police, victim Upendra Rai, 49, who is a builder and developer residing in Goregaon (E), was looking to buy a second hand BMW.
On seeing an advertisement about BMW X5 model on the OLX website, he got in touch with the accused on August 28, after which Puja followed up their ‘business’
conversation.The accused duo offered Mr Rai a Range Rover along with the BMW and Mr Rai agreed to buy both for approximately Rs 51.5 lakh, the police said. Following this, the gang asked Mr Rai to deposit the money in their account. However, after depositing more than Rs 50 lakh, when Mr Rai tried to get in touch with the accused, he got no response. His phone calls and emails to the accused were in vain. He finally approached the police on November 6.
The duo was arrested from the Navi Mumbai area on Thursday. The accused were produced in court on Friday and sent to police custody for 10 days.
