Cops nab mastermind, aide from Kolkata; say accused would print tickets with Rs 10,000 or less as prize so as to not share bank account details
Surojit Sarkar, the mastermind, printed the fake tickets; Sarkar’s aide Anil Devang would take the tickets to a different city to collect the prize
The Borivli police have arrested two more accused in the lottery scam, bringing the number of arrested in the case to six, and revealed how the gang collected the prize money using fake lottery tickets.
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The arrest comes after the police busted an interstate gang and arrested four accused, all residents of West Bengal, on March 3. The cops then launched a hunt for the mastermind and formed a special team under the supervision of senior inspector Ninad Sawant comprising PSI Nilesh More, constable Vikram Mehar and ASI Parkash Jamde.
The team went to Kolkata and after four days of hunt, nabbed the mastermind, Surojit Sarkar, 39, and his associate Anil Devang, 43, from Sundarban area of North 24 Pargana district, West Bengal on March 14.
The two accused were then brought to Mumbai and produced before the court and have been remanded in police custody till March 25, said inspector Namdev Jadhav.
Police sources said that the gang was active in Kolkata for the past four years and collected crores of rupees as prize money using fake lottery tickets. However, as the state government implemented strict rules, the gang moved to Mumbai and cheated a number of lottery vendors of around Rs 14 lakh within a single week, said an officer from Borivli police station.
How the gang operated
As per police sources, Sarkar managed the gang from Kolkata while each member of the gang had different responsibilities.
A few members were sent to lottery shops in Nagaland where they would take photos of the winning lottery numbers, a list of which is kept at the shop, and send it to Sarkar.
Sarkar would then print the tickets and send Devang to a different city by flight to claim the prize money. Sarkar would print tickets of lotteries that had a prize of Rs 10,000 or less, as winners are required to submit their bank account numbers in case the prize money is more than that.
The case came to the fore when a Borivli-based lottery shop owner found that one Kishore Anand Mohan Mandal had collected the prize money using a fake ticket. Following this, he complained to the police who arrested three more accused—Arun Deori, Saidul Islam Mola, and Soleman Ansari, all residents of West Bengal—on March 3 and recovered 250 fake tickets from them.
Rs 14 lakh
Amount the gang cheated in a week in Mumbai
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