Mumbai Crime: Conman dupes businessman for Rs 98,000 after posing as food delivery app manager

Accused Mohammed Usman

A conman who would cheat people by posing as a senior executive of a food delivery app on a search engine, literally walked into the police net after he landed in the city for New Year celebrations. Accused Mohammed Usman had cheated a Bhayandar-based businessman of over Rs 98,000 in a similar way after which the victim registered a complaint with the Malad police station. Recently, on checking his call date records, the cops traced Usman to Navi Mumbai and arrested him.

Officers attached to the Malad Cyber cell, API Vivek Tambe along with his staff HC Ashok Konde and PC Vikas Maske nabbed him from Airoli in Navi Mumbai last week. During interrogation Usman confessed to the crime and revealed that he, along with his associate Israil Ansari, committed similar crimes all over the country.

Further investigation revealed that Usman had registered his contact number on a search engine as the Mumbai regional manager of a food delivery app. The complainant had recently started a restaurant in Malad and wanted to get a franchise of the food delivery app. As he was not aware of the procedure, he contacted the search engine in September last year for the details.

Speaking to mid-day, the complainant said, "I called up the search engine and asked for the contact details of the food delivery app. After some time I got a call from a person who said he was the Mumbai regional manager of the company and asked me to pay Rs 20 as registration fee via Google Pay and also to fill up a registration form. After I filled in the details and made the payment, I got a message saying R98,965 had been debited from my bank account. I tried calling back on the same number but he disconnected the call. Then I approached the Malad police station and registered a complaint."

A police officer said, "We had registered a case under sections 417, 419 and 420 of IPC and were doing the investigation when we found the accused was from Jamtara in Jharkhand. A police team comprising DCP Vishal Thakur, senior inspector George Fernandez and inspector Dattatry Thopte and API VivekTambe were preparing to go to Jharkhand when Usman's number was traced to Navi Mumbai. We laid a trap and arrested him from Airoli last week." Cops said that a mobile phone and R7,000 cash had been recovered from him and his interrogation revealed that he had come to Mumbai for New Year celebrations.