Fraudster arrested for posing as big shots, duping traders

LUCKNOW: A key member of a gang of fraudsters involved in duping businessmen, traders and contractors in the name of providing government contracts was arrested from Alambagh area here on Thursday, police said.

The gang members pose as ministers in the previous Samajwadi Party government, senior IAS officers or employees of government secretariat and duped people, assuring contracts.

The leader of the gang, Abhishek Nigam, who often posed as a minister or an IAS officer when he met people, was arrested in January 2017 and is languishing in jail since then. But the gang’s other key member, Rahul Shukla alias Durgesh alias Ram, was on the run and the Hazratganj police arrested him from his friend’s place in Alambagh area on Thursday.

Inspector of Hazratganj police station, Anand Shahi said Rahul Shukla managed to evade his arrest as none of the complainants knew his original name and other details. He said Shukla was the main executor of almost every plan of the gang.

“Shukla selected the target, approached them posing as a secretariat employee, fixed their meeting with fake ministers or IAS officers, convinced them of getting the contracts and collected money from them,” Shahi said. He added Shukla came under the radar when a Kolkata leather trader Sarfaraz Alam, who was duped of ₹46 lakh after a false promise of government contract for supply of school bags, gave some details about him.

Alam said Shukla approached him in Kolkata in September 2016 posing as a secretariat employee. He told the cops that Shukla fixed his meeting with Abhishek Nigam (posing a state minister) in a government building and the latter assured him of providing the contract. But, he later realised that the so-called minister was an imposter. The inspector said it was not the lone case. Earlier, Nigam was arrested when he gave a forged letter signed by the then district magistrate of Kanpur to an Aminabad cloth trader Navjot assuring him to provide sarees supply contract in 2016.

Thereafter, multiple cases of fraud by the gang were registered at different police stations in the state capital, he added.

Shahi said the fraudsters had also duped a Jharkhand trader Manoj Kumar of ₹50 crore in the name of providing phenyl supply contract. At least 15 similar cases of fraud were lodged against them, Shahi said.

The inspector said the other members of the gang were Saazi Siddiqui, Hari Shanker, Vivek Sinha and Mehmood Ali, who helped the key operators posing as their staff members. He said efforts were on to nab the remaining gang members.