2 held for organising fake tour packages for govt employees

NEW DELHI: Delhi Police said they have unearthed a “syndicate” and arrested two men for allegedly cheating government employees by luring them by organising fraudulent Leave Travel Concession (LTC) tours for them.

Police said over 350 victims have been cheated since 2013, which include employees of different government organisations like Union ministry of health, Delhi government’s health department, postal department, AIIMS, court employees and even Delhi Police staff.

According to the police, in June 2013, a man identified as Surender Kumar, said a woman contacted him over the phone and told him about an alleged tour programme to Jammu and Kashmir under LTC for government employees.

“She introduced herself as Monika Tyagi and claimed she was a marketing executive at INI Tour and Travel Pvt Ltd. We later found that this was a fake firm. On her assurance, the complainant agreed to visit Jammu and Kashmir along with his family and paid ₹91,000 cash to Tyagi. On June 15, 2013 when Kumar visited the travel firm’s office, which he had been told was in Connaught Place, he found it did not exist,” said deputy commissioner of police (New Delhi) Madhur Verma.

On Kumar’s complaint a case of cheating was registered. Verma said, apart from Kumar, they found that 60 other complaints, employees of different government departments, ministry of health, Delhi health department, postal department, AIIMS, court employees and staff of Delhi Police, also alleged cheating under name of the same firm.

Verma said, during probe, all 60 victims were contacted and the police team managed to identify the entire executive staff of the company including Monika.

Last Wednesday, a Delhi Police team arrested one Ash- wani Singh from Mohan Garden in Uttam Nagar, following a tip off. During two days police remand Singh revealed whereabouts of accused Harpat Singh, who was also arrested following a raid in Gurugram, the DCP said.

“During questioning, the two men revealed that four men — Bhavesh, Mahendra Paleja, Ashiwini Singh and Harpat Singh — had hired staff to sell LTC tour packages to government employees. They had offered tours in two batches, from June 12, 2013, to June 16 and from June 16 to June 20, 2013. We found that on June 12, 2013n at least 180 passengers had departed from New Delhi airport to Sri Nagar, but on June 16, 2013n when the 180 passengers arrived at Sri Nagar airport for their return journey, they found their flight was cancelled due to nonpayment of tickets,” the DCP said.

Similarly, another batch of 180 passengers reached New Delhi airport to start their LTC tour from Delhi airport to Sri Nagar on June 16, 2013, but their flights were also cancelled, police said.