The Central Crime Branch police arrested a conman who allegedly posed as a senior officer with a Central government agency, and cheated unemployed youth by promising them government jobs. Over the years, he accumulated enough money to buy a house in his hometown, a hotel in Tumakuru, an apartment in Kengeri, and gold jewellery worth several lakhs.
Based on a complaint filed by one of the victims with the Banashankari police station, the CCB took over the case considering the inter-city ramification and arrested the conman, identified as Raghavendra Poojari, a resident of Basaruru village in Kundapura in Udupi. According to the police, he settled down in J.P. Nagar ten years after passing class X.
He allegedly told the police that he worked as an assistant to an officer in the Survey Department in his village. But he lost his job when the officer retired and decided to relocate to Bengaluru. The accused made a fake-ID card stating that he was a Deputy Commissioner with the Survey Department. He convinced unemployed youth that he would get them jobs and took money from them depending on the nature of the ‘posting’.
“He collected payment in cash and online transfers into his bank accounts, and often demanded additional money to release the ‘appointment letter’. If the victims did not have money, he would take bank cheques as security and threaten to lodge complaints of cheques bouncing,” said the police. If a victim confronted him after realising that they had been scammed, he allegedly threatened to kill them if they approached the police.
The CCB has recovered property documents from his house in Kundapura and have taken him into custody for further investigation.
