Man held for duping with fancy mobile number offers

A man has been arrested for duping people on the pretext of providing them fancy mobile phone numbers, police said on Friday.

Akshay Kumar Aggarwal, 23, a resident of Chhindwara district in Madhya Pradesh, was arrested on July 10 from Kolkata in West Bengal.

Police said that the accused lured one Yogesh Gupta, a Delhi resident, on the pretext of providing him two fancy mobile phone numbers.

The accused informed the victim that such fancy numbers were being provided by a company "Number Vault Pvt. Ltd".

Gupta had lodged a complaint with the crime branch of Delhi Police in February.

Police seized Rs.3 lakh from the possession of the accused.

"Akshay was a student of Symbiosis College of Engineering in Pune but he could not complete his degree due to bad company and financial problems," Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch), Delhi Police, Ravindra Yadav said.

Yadav said that Akshay later developed a craze for subscribing to VIP and fancy mobile phone numbers and adopted it as a profession.

"He has gathered good knowledge about VIP mobile phone numbers and series through computer and retailers," Yadav said.

"He would send bulk messages having fancy series under header 'BH-VIPNOS'," he said.

According to the official, the accused, in conversations with the victims, used to project himself as the owner of a company named "Number Vault Pvt. Ltd".

"The gullible persons would deposit the required amount in his account. As soon as the amount was credited in his account, he would cut all communication with that person," Yadav said.

The official said that the accused had cheated Yogesh Gupta, Kailash Aggarwal and one more person Nitin in this manner.

He opened accounts in the State Bank of India, Bank of India and the Oriental Bank of Commerce in Bhopal.

He was also involved in a similar case of cheating in Gujarat.