Fugitive confidence trickster held in Bhubaneswar

: A 43-year-old man, on the run since January 2017 after allegedly cheating people here of crores of rupees, has been arrested in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, police said Thursday.

Soumen Banerjee, hailing from West Bengal, posed as a Customs officer and cheated the people under the pretext of offering them gold coins at 50 per cent discount and 30 per cent interest on their investments, the police said.

The most wanted inter-state criminal Banerjee was picked up from Bhubaneswar and brought here, Rachakonda Police Commissioner Mahesh MBhagwatsaid.

Banerjee came to Chengicherla here in 2013 and introduced himself as a Customs official working at Visakhapatnam port.

He told the local residents that gold without bills that were seized from people during raids can be sold to the public at 50 per cent discount (from prevailing prices) if they pay the cash in advance, the police said.

Believing this, people started parting with the cash. Initially, Banerjee provided them gold coins and also informed the public to invest money in his business firms which would pay them 30 per cent interest. He did pay them 30 per cent interest at the beginning to win their trust, the police said.

To further gain confidence of the public, the cheat arranged lavish parties by inviting his investors, arranged tours for them, bought them plane tickets, arranged luxurious rooms and gifted them expensive mobiles phones, they said.

By doing all this, he collected around Rs 5 crore from the public and was rotating the money among investors. On January 31, 2017 he went absconding and switched off all his mobiles phones.

Realising they have been cheated, the victims approached the police who registered a case.

During investigation, police teams searched for Banerjee in various parts of the country and traced him to Amritsar in September 2017 but he escaped.

It was found he had cheated several people there also by promising them jobs and collected lakhs of rupees, police said.

Finally, Banerjee was apprehended in Bhubaneswar and found him with fake identity cards ofCustoms and anti-corruption officials and a general manager in security services, among others.

On interrogation he revealed he had 20 accounts in different public and private sector banks, police said, adding he would be taken into their custody for further probe and recovery of all the properties of the victims.