BENGALURU: A 61-year-old retired railway employee from Solapur, Maharashtra, was duped of Rs 40 lakh by six persons - including three of his friends - who fraudulently claimed that one of them had received Rs 65,000 crore in RBI from an overseas account and they would pay him a commission of 1% if he helped them pay taxes to get the money released.
An FIR was registered in this regard on April 8 at Chamarajpet police station. Retiree Sajjan Babu Rao Ravade told police his friends Sunil Gulab Rao Barse and Atish Kale on November 1, 2020 told him that one of their common friends, Shivakumar, had received Rs 65,000 crore from an overseas account in connection with a business deal.
They said he was struggling to withdraw the money as he was short of cash to pay taxes. Kale said Shivakumar was in need of Rs 40 lakh to pay taxes and if Ravade helped him with the cash, he would get a 1% commission (Rs 650 crore).
Ravade, who worked as a railway coach guard in Solapur, had taken voluntary retirement in 2017 and had secured Rs 40 lakh of pension money. About a week after the talk, Barse and Kale took Ravade to a hotel in Chamarajpet, Bengaluru, to introduce to him four others - Shivakumar, Ramesh Kumar, Shashidhar, and Ambas Jartar Dar.
"I was shown some documents bearing RBI name and seals which read that Rs 65,000 crore was credited to the RBI account of Shivakumar from an overseas one. I believed them and agreed to pay the money," said Ravade.
On November 7, 2020, Ravade paid Rs 5 lakh in cash and after two days, another Rs 15 lakh. "A week later, I transferred Rs 20 lakh more to Shivakumar's account," he said.
When the money was not credited after a few days, Ravade called Barse and Kale, who said there was a slight delay but he would soon receive the payment. The delay tactics continued for almost one and a half years, until all the accused went incommunicado.
"We will soon arrest the accused. The private bank to which Ravade's money was transferred has been contacted and requested to freeze the account concerned," a cop said.
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