Three held in Delhi for duping people of lakhs

Three men were arrested here for allegedly duping people of lakhs of rupees after receiving signed cheques from them as payment for car servicing, police said on Monday.

The matter came to light when a resident of Paschim Vihar reported that the suspects swindled Rs 1.70 lakh from his account after taking a cheque of much lesser payable amount from him, the police said.

A case was registered in this regard last month, they said.

Two of the suspects -- Balbir Singh (25) and Pawan Sharma (30) -- told police that they used to make people fill details in a cheque with a "magic pen" and then asked them to sign it with a regular one, a senior police officer said.

While the third accused -- Amit Raj Saxena -- arranged fake identity proofs for the group, the officer said.

Anything written on a paper by a magic pen disappears if a lit matchstick is placed underneath, the police said.

After omitting the details written by "magic pen" on the cheque, the accused used to write a higher amount and encash it, the officer said.

They further told police that they used to call people with attractive car servicing offers after getting their contact details from an online local search platform, he said.

Later, the three men would visit the residence of unsuspecting clients to obtain the cheque, the officer added.

He said one of the accused was identified with the help of CCTV footage in which he can be seen receiving the cheque from the complainant and their location was traced to Jahangirpuri using their Call Detail Record (CDR).