Tamil Nadu police arrests conman from Rajasthan in 'courier-drug' scam

Chennai: Nearly three months after a Chennai resident lost Rs 15.26 lakh in a 'drugs-in-parcel' scam, Tamil Nadu police have arrested a 23-year old man from Rajasthan who allegedly defrauded the complainant through impersonation.

On March 17 this year, a person falsely claiming to represent Mumbai branch of 'FedEx' courier company, deceived the resident, S Ashok Ranjit, by conveying to him over phone that his 'parcel to Taiwan from Mumbai' contained contraband items.

The fraudster told Ranjit who lives in downtown Kilpauk here that 'Mumbai police' would inquire him and passed on the phone to another person who claimed to be from 'Mumbai police.' The person who impersonated as a Mumbai police official intimidated Ranjith saying that he would be 'arrested' and later through a Skype call asked him to transfer his bank balance to a specified bank account, a Chennai police release said on Saturday.

The conman told Ranjit that the money remitted by him to the specified account will be transferred to 'RBI' and if he was found to be not guilty, the money would be transferred back to his account.

Ranjit, through two instalments, transferred Rs 15.26 lakh to the bank account mentioned by the fraudsters and later, following his visit to his bank, he understood that he had been duped and lodged a police complaint.

Following investigation, a team of cybercrime sleuths camped in Rajasthan and arrested Vishalkumar from Daulatpura near Jaipur for defrauding Ranjith. Vishalkumar was produced before a court in Rajasthan and later he was brought here and lodged in a prison after producing him in a Chennai court.

There have been a number of other cases of similar nature in other regions of the country and Chennai police had arrested five men in April in connection with another case of the same kind, which was also reported in Chennai.

FedEX, on its website, said it does not request, "via unsolicited call, mail, text or email, payment or personal information in return for goods in transit or in FedEx custody. If you receive any of these or similar communications, do not reply or cooperate with the sender."