JOIN USA 51-year-old woman has been arrested for duping people and seeking favours by posing as an officer on special duty (OSD) in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), the police said on Wednesday.
Sumangali Francina Easther Charles alias Suman Singh from Andhra Pradesh has a history of duping people by impersonating herself as an Indian Administrative Service officer and OSD in the PMO, said Sandeep Goel, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime).
She was arrested at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport on Tuesday on a complaint filed by Director-General of Civil Aviation E K Bharat Bhushan. Bhushan told police that a woman named Suman Singh called him on January 20, posing herself as an OSD and had asked him to give appointment to a pilot, Captain Amar Singh.
Bhushan then met Captain Singh in his office on January 21 and found that Singh had been debarred from flying on account of a suspected fraud in obtaining licence.
“Thereafter, when Bhushan enquired from the PMO, he found that there was no such OSD or other official by the name of Suman Singh. He then contacted Suman Singh on her mobile phone on which she asked him to come to the PMO to meet her. On being confirmed that there was no OSD by her name in the PMO, she disconnected the phone and did not respond,” Goel said.
Police enquiry then revealed that the same modus operandi was adopted by Sumangali Francina Easther Charles, who was earlier arrested in a similar case by the Crime Branch of the Delhi Police in 2003.
“In 2003, she had impersonated as an additional private secretary to the deputy prime minister and had then called the commissioner of Customs at the New Custom House in New Delhi asking for personal favours in a case. Later on, during the trial of the case, she jumped bail and was declared absconder in October 2011,” Goel said.
The police, however, managed to arrest the con woman again on Tuesday after a tip-off that she would be reaching Delhi from Chennai by air.
During interrogation, Sumangali told police that she was married to a Delhi-based transporter. She confessed that as she was used to a lavish lifestyle, she started duping people by impersonating as an IAS officer and an OSD in the PMO.
“She used to collect money from gullible people by promising them jobs and settling pending works and disputes by talking to senior government officers. She also used a car with a red beacon in Hyderabad, in the past, with ‘Government of India’ written on the number plate and sporting Tri Colour,” Goel said.
She even attended some programmes as chief guest in the capacity of a senior government official, conning the public.
“To give no scope of doubt, she reportedly carried a visiting card with a national emblem, like other senior Central government officers,” Goel added.
Sumangali was also arrested by Hyderabad’s Central Crime Station (CCS) in April 2011 in a cheating case.
A businessman, Mohammed Kaisar, had told police that Sumangali had posed as the OSD in the PMO and cheated him of Rs 50 lakh by convincing him that she could help him in getting a Rs 40-crore compensation in a deal.
The Hyderabad police had also arrested her for cheating one Mohammed Khaleel of Rs 10 lakh by promising to settle a land dispute.