52-yr-old cheats trader of ₹4L, held

MUMBAI: A 52-year-old man was arrested by the Wadala TT police on Tuesday in connection with a racket, whose members used to lure small traders into exchanging ₹2,000 notes and give them fake notes in return. The arrested accused, Israr Shaikh, was arrested on the complaint of Ravishankar Pandey, who was cheated of ₹4 lakh. The police are looking for another accused, who used to lure the targets.

A similar case was reported at the Sakinaka police station and police suspect the accused have duped many in the city. The fraudsters used to target small traders who mostly deal in cash and lure them into exchanging notes of ₹2,000 by promising them change in return, which they claimed was collected as donation from temples. However, the ‘change’ used to be fake notes.

According to the police, Pandey, who runs a stationery shop in Jogeshwari, was approached by one of the accused two months ago. The accused told Pandey that he knew someone who can provide him ₹2,000 currency notes and give change in return. “Pandey was told that the change was going to come from donation collected at a temple. He was told that the temple authority can’t go to the bank to exchange the change for higher denomination notes as the money is unaccounted for,” said an assistant inspector.

They lured Pandey with 20% commission on the deal, the inspector said. Pandey gave Shaikh ₹4 lakh in denominations of ₹2,000. He was given ₹4 lakh and ₹80,000 commission in denominations of ₹100 and ₹50. The fraudster ensured that Pandey did not see the change money at the time of the exchange. According to the police, when Pandey checked the notes at home, he found it was bundles of fake notes with ‘Children Bank of India’ printed on it. Pandey then approached the police and a complaint was registered. Shaikh was arrested on Tuesday based on a tip-off.

THE ACCUSED TARGETED SMALL TRADERS