Fake excise official who conned woman arrested

A 40-year-old man was arrested for posing as a senior excise official and stealing a gold chain from a jewellery shop.

He also stole an iPhone from a woman whom he promised to marry.

The suspect Abdul Mubarak alias Vinay Kumar is a car mechanic.

The woman, in her complaint, said she met the suspect on a BTMC bus a few months ago. He was wearing an excise department uniform and was wearing an ID card. They struck a conversation after which the man said he worked with the excise department in Telangana. He took her phone number and kept in touch with her. They became friends and then he promised to marry her, she said.

On February 10, Mubarak took her to a jewellery shop on DVG Road on the pretext of shopping for their wedding. However, he walked away from the shop with the gold chain and did not return. The woman then realised that he had gone with her iPhone also.

But the jewellers took them to be thieves and called the police.

After primary inquiries, the police learnt that the woman was innocent.

Probing the CCTV footage from the jewellery shop and the phone numbers he had used to call the woman, the Basavanagudi police traced him to Parappana Agrahara.

They arrested him and recovered the stolen gold chain weighing 28 gm, iPhone, and the fake identity cards that he used. The police also recovered a car with stars used by senior government officials.

On further interrogation, the police learnt that a similar case was registered at the APMC police station in Mumbai against Mubarak.