A 38-year-old man was arrested from Himachal Pradesh for allegedly duping women on a false promise of giving high returns on their investments, police said on Saturday.
Praveen alias Rohit Sehrawat, hailing from Sonipat district in Haryana, used to befriend his targets on social media, where he posed as a government official, an investment banker and a stock market enthusiast, they said, adding he learnt about this modus operandi to cheat on YouTube.
A victim, in her complaint, alleged that she received a friend request on social media from Praveen, who introduced himself as a Grade-1 officer in Delhi Metro as well as an investment banker, a senior police officer said.
The two began chatting and over a period of time, he convinced her to invest Rs 25,000 assuring that the money will be doubled in a month.
As promised, the victim said, she received the money, which prompted her to invest Rs 50,000 and she again received 200 per cent of the returns.
Eventually, Praveen allegedly asked her to invest a minimum of Rs 10 lakh. Believing him, the woman sent Rs 15 lakh to his various accounts after which he remained cut off from her, police said.
During investigation, a suspect was zeroed in and he was frequently changing his location. He was arrested following a raid in Himachal Pradesh’s Kangra district, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Rohini) Pranav Tayal said.
During interrogation, Praveen told the police that he learnt this trick to cheat from YouTube, the DCP said, adding he used to target women aged 35 years and above.
In order to lure them, the accused used to source photographs and videos of rich people from Instagram and upload them on his Facebook account giving the impression that he was living a luxurious life, police said.
He used to give the initial returns as promised to convince the targets into shelling out a much higher amount, the DCP said.
During investigation, it was also revealed that Praveen’s parents had lodged his missing complaint around two years ago in Kanjhawala police station here, they said.
