Three arrested for cheating B’wood actress over Rs 2.7L

The accused persons are believed to have cheated over 100 persons living in Australia

NEW DELHI: Three persons, who pretended to be as Australian tax officers, were arrested by Delhi Police for running a scam that is believed to have affected more than a hundred persons living in Australia. Police said that the fraudsters also cheated Bollywood actress of 5, 700 Australian Dollars (Rs 2,76,777.75) by threatening to arrest her for tax violations.

Police identified the accused as Bhanuj Berry (24), Puneet Chadha (34) and Rishabh Khanna (23). They were arrested from West Delhi area.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Cypad) Anyesh Roy said that they received a complaint from Bollywood actress Isha Sharvani, who lives in Perth. In her complaint, Isha said that she received calls from someone who claimed to be calling on behalf of the Australian Tax Office.

DCP Roy added that the calling number that was displayed on complainant's phone was of Canberra, the capital city of Australia. The caller told her that there were some violations in her tax returns because of which the Australian Government had issued a warrant for her immediate arrest.

She was further told by the accused that the only way to settle the matter was a confidential transaction to the remittance officer of the Australian Tax Office, India Branch.

The accused persons intimidated the victim into transferring money to them via Western Union (3500 AUD) and RIA Money Transfer (2500 AUD).

The accused stayed on the call with her for more than three hours until the transaction was over. Later on, the victim realised that she had been duped. The team under ACP Aditya Gautam started their investigation. From the details provided by Western Union and RIA Money transfer, the team was able to track down three accused in the case.

"Puneet Chadha has studied Master of Business Administration, while Bhanuj Berry has studied B.com from School of Open Learning and Rishabh Khanna is in the final year of Bachelor of Business Administration," police said.

During interrogation, the accused disclosed that they operate from a fake call centre in Vikaspuri. They specifically target people living in Australia by pretending to be Australian Tax Officials. They made VOIP calls and used number spoofing software for displaying Australian numbers and also talked in fluent Australian English accent.

They intimidate the unsuspecting victims by claiming that there was a problem with their tax returns due to which the government had issued a warrant for their immediate arrest and later they duped money.

"Several bank accounts of the accused having money more than Rs. 1 Crore have been frozen," police said.