Mumbai: Man dupes kin of critical black fungus patient of Rs 1.8 lakh, spends on wedding

Accused Rupesh Mohite during his wedding

The MHB police have arrested a 27-year-old man for allegedly duping people of lakhs of rupees on the pretext of providing them with medicines used to treat mucormycosis. Recently, accused Rupesh Mohite cheated a Borivli West resident of Rs 1.80 lakh and used the money for his wedding. Complainant Raunak Agarwal was looking for someone who could arrange doses of the Amphotericin-B drug used in treating black fungus. His 41-year-old relative was admitted to DNS Hospital, Indore, and desperately needed the injections.

The complainant needed the doses desperately as his relative was in a critical condition. Representation pic

On May 23, Raunak called a friend, who works at a medical store and enquired about the medicine. His friend gave him the contact number of Mohite and said that he could arrange for the medicine. When Raunak called Rupesh, the latter said that he could get the medicine for him but he would have to pay Rs 6,000 for each dose.

"As doctors had asked me to get 60 doses of the injection, I demanded the same from Rupesh. He asked me to pay half the total amount as advance, which is Rs 1.80 lakh. We needed the injection urgently as my relative's health was deteriorating, so I agreed to pay for it," said Raunak.

Raunak added that Rupesh shared his account number and asked to transfer the money, following which he paid Rs 50,000 from his own pocket and borrowed the rest from his friends and sent it to the accused on May 25.

"After this Rupesh told me that he would send the injections on May 27, but when I called him on that day, initially he didn't respond and when he did, he gave vague reasons for not being able to send the medicine. I realised that I have been duped and asked him to return the money. When he refused to pay me back, I decided to catch hold of him," added Raunak.

Thereafter, the complainant along with his friend managed to call Rupesh at Saidham Mandir, Malad East on June 1 and took him to the Dindoshi police station. Post an inquiry, the cops found that the incident took place within the jurisdiction of the MHB police station and handed him over to them.

The MHB cops arrested Rupesh under IPC section 406 (criminal breach of trust) and 420 (cheating). Rupesh was produced in court and sent to police custody. Investigation has revealed that Rupesh cheated more than two to three people using the same modus operandi and earned over Rs 1 lakh from each of them. It was also revealed that the day Raunak transferred the money to Rupesh, he got married using the same for the ceremony.