Frauds fake ice-cream site to dupe people

MUMBAI: A case has been registered by the Colaba police based on a complaint lodged by Graviss Foods Private Limited, which owns the popular ice cream brand Baskin-Robbins, alleging that several people have been cheated by some unidentified frauds under the guise of allotting them franchises of the ice cream manufacturer.

The complaint was filed by Shikha Thakkar, senior legal executive of Graviss Foods, which has its head office in Colaba. According to the complainant, the company has four branches and Baskin-Robbins is one of them. She informed the police that several employees of Baskin-Robbins informed them that some people were posting on social media that due to Christmas Baskin-Robbins was offering their franchises at highly discounted rates. “When interested people contacted the numbers given the advertisements appearing on social media, they were asked to register on a fake website of Baskin-Robbins, then pay initial amount of ₹1.5 lakh, they had even given an email id to post grievances if any,” said a police officer from Colaba police station. They claimed the offer was only for Christmas and if one wanted to apply for franchises there were several other plans as well.

“The accused who identified himself as Sumit Ranjan Tripathi posed as a company executive. We have named two accused presently and booked under relevant sections of the IPC,” said Vijay Hatiskar, senior police inspector. The police are trying to trace the accused with technical details and will be writing to several agencies.

HT PHOTO The cyber frauds were offering Baskin-Robbins franchises at discounted rates.