Mumbai: Kolkata man offers gadgets on sale online, cheats 40 people

MUMBAI: For nearly two years, an unemployed man from Kolkata lived out of a hotel in Bandra and cheated around 40 people of lakhs by offering gadgets for sale on e-commerce portals to fund his lavish lifestyle. Once buyers made the payment into his e-account, Rajeev Gupta aka Umashankar Sharma (34) would redeem the money to shop for gadgets and later sell them, said the police.
Gupta gave a share of his ill-gotten wealth to his girlfriend, who lives in Andheri, said the police.She is on the run. “We will soon nab her and freeze her bank account,” said a police officer.
Gupta’s game was up when his latest target, a software engineer, filed a complaint with the MIDC police. In February, the techie saw a post on eBay offering a MacBook for Rs 15,000. Tempted, he dialled one of the two phone numbers listed in the post. The seller claimed he was an employee of an electronics megastore who held a rewards point account with the megastore and would receive the payment in this account. The techie agreed and paid an instalment of Rs 10,000 through his digital wallet on February 27. But the seller changed his mind; he said the MacBook price had now increased and would cost Rs 15,000 more. The complainant made the payment through his digital wallet on February 28. But he didn’t receive the MacBook and the phone numbers were switched off after the transaction.
A police team, led by senior inspector Nitin Alaknure, found that the seller’s phone numbers were a dead end as they were only for making WhatsApp calls. A few days later, the complainant told the police that he had received calls from some unknown numbers when he was negotiating for the MacBook. One of the numbers was associated with a bank account and a food delivery service. “We got Gupta’s name and photograph from the bank. The food delivery service confirmed sending meal parcels to a Bandra hotel. We also visited the electronics megastore and checked their CCTV footage which confirmed that Gupta had purchased products by redeeming reward points. He was then arrested,” said a police officer. “Gupta used another identity to con his targets. He would send them fake Aadhaar and PAN cards copies over WhatsApp to convince them that he was an employee of the electronics megastore.”
An orphan, Gupta had moved from Kolkata to Mumbai a few years ago.
The police have recovered six cellphones, a MacBook and 68 products purchased from the electronics megastore from Gupta.