Man arrested for defrauding buyer of Rs 2.5L under pretext of selling car on OLX

Mangaluru: The Mangaluru CEN police have arrested a man for allegedly cheating a buyer of Rs 2.5 lakh under the pretext of selling a car on the OLX app.

The arrested has been identified as Ravichandra Manjunath Revanakar (29), son of Manjunath Revanakar, a resident of Banavasi, Uttara Kannada.

The complainant had stated that Ravichandra collected Rs 2,50,000 from the complainant on the promise of selling a car, but later defrauded the buyer. A case was registered Sections 318(4), 3(5), 112 of BNS and IT Act Sections 66(C) and 66(D).

During investigation, the police traced the suspect to Hospet and dispatched a team already working on another case nearby to apprehend him. Ravichandra was taken into custody and brought to Mangaluru for interrogation.

Police found that the suspect was operating 21 bank accounts and using 8 SIM cards. More than 80 cyber fraud complaints have been registered across these phone numbers, said DCP (law and order) Sidharth Goyal.

It has come to light that Ravichandra has been running the scam for the past three years, repeatedly creating listings on OLX for cars, collecting money, and then disappearing. He reportedly uses a mobile phone number only for a short duration and switches to new SIM cards, the DCP said.