Cameroon national held over money doubling racket

The Central Crime Branch (CCB) sleuths on Tuesday arrested a 37-year-old Cameroon national for trying to cheat people with currency doubling scheme.

The accused has been identified as Jaquas Deva Louis Kit, a resident of Shakti Nagar in Hennur.

The Cameroonian national came under the scanner of the police through Andhra Pradesh resident Vinay Kumar, who went to the CCB office and informed AP Kumar, police inspector of the Special Enquiry squad, about Kit's money doubling offer.

Kit contacted Vinay, who was deep in debt, over the phone a month ago and offered to provide him twice the amount of fake currency in exchange for genuine Indian currency notes.

After the two met, Kit told Vinay to get him Rs 1 lakh worth genuine currency in exchange for Rs 2.5 lakh of fake notes. To convince Vinay, Kit gave Vinay a Rs 2000 fake note almost resembling a genuine note.

Kit told Vinay that he was getting notes worth around Rs 2 crore from his country and asked Vinay to arrange Rs 50 lakh to get Rs 1 crore in return.

The police made Vinay call Kit to arrange the meet following which a team of officials went with Vinay to Hennur.

Vinay gave Rs 10,000 to Kit as told by the police but Kit refused to give the fake notes, asking Vinay to get Rs 1 lakh more if he wanted to conclude the deal. Vinay returned empty-handed and told Kumar about the details of the meet.

Subsequently, CCB officials detained Kit in his house. A senior officer of the CCB said Kit had 300 pieces of white paper cut according to the size of Rs 2000 Indian currency note. The police also recovered the Rs 10,000 which Vinay had given to Kit earlier.

Kit told the police that he had come to India on a tourist visa two years back but had lost his passport and his visa had also expired.

The accused also revealed that he randomly contacted people over the phone and baited them with the money doubling offer.

"We have registered a case against him in Hennur police station under the Foreigners Act and IPC section 420 – cheating. He will be further booked for overstaying," the officer added.

According to the police, Vinay wanted the fake currency as he had lost all his money and property on horse race betting. He was under a debt of Rs 40 lakh.

So in order to make quick money and clear his debts, Vinay showed interest in Kit's offer, the police said.

The police said that Kit had given Vinay a genuine Rs 2000 note, saying it was fake to make Vinay believe him and later con him.