Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offences Wing, Bhubaneswar has arrested two fraudsters for impersonating as IAS officer and PWD officer in a cheating case of more than Rs 1.17 crores. The fraudsters have been identified as Surymani Trpathy and Amit Kumar from Cuttack and Bhubaneswar respectively.
Reportedly, one Mukesh Jain, the Proprietor of M/s Rashtriya Stainless Steel, Jindal House at New Delhi’s Asaf Ali Road, had filed a complaint mentioning Rajesh Gahlot,Surya Mani Triapthy and Amit Kumar entered into criminal conspiracy with another accused and impersonated themselves respectively as the officers of RAW,IAS and PWD. They cheated the Mukesh and his son with the help of another lady who impersonated herself as Treasury Officer in respect of Rs 1.17 crores on the pretext of arranging big government work orders/ contracts for them in Works Department of Government of Odisha.
Mukesh was having its Branch Office at Kalinganagar, Bhubaneswar and his son Akshay Jain was the Proprietor of the company.
In 2017, Mukesh came in contact with Rajesh Gahlot through one of his friend. Rajesh introduced himself as an officer of RAW having many IAS officers in Odisha as his friends. Thereafter he introduced Akshay to Suryamani Tripathy at Odisha Niwas in Delhi saying that he was posted as Additional Secretary to Government of Odisha in PWD (Public Works Department). They both assured the complainant and his son to help them in getting high value Govt. contracts /work orders under “Pradhan Mantree Yojana” in Odisha.
Later, Amit was introduced to them by Suryamani as an Engineer working with PWD. Both Suryamani and Amit took Mukesh and his son to Bhubaneswar Court and prepared the agreement papers purportedly signed by Assistant Engineer. They took the signature of Akshay on behalf of Rashtriya Stainless Steel and also got the agreement papers notarized.
Next in 2018, Suryamani and Amit called the complainant and his son to Bhubaneswar asking them to deposit a sum of Rs.25 lakhs with Government Treasury for registering their firm i.e. M/s Rashtriya Stainless Steel with PWD, Odisha for issuance of work order. Being persuaded by them, the complainant accompanied both the accused to the premises of Government Treasury at OLA Campus and paid cash of Rs.25 lakhs to one lady at the instances of the accused person.
Suryamani collected a treasury receipt in respect of Rs.25 lakhs and handed over the same to the complainant. He also handed over a fake letter, purportedly signed by Accounts Officer, Nirman Soudha, Bhubaneswar addressed to Branch Manager, Axis Bank, Unit-IV, Bhubaneswar requesting therein to transfer an amount of Rs.1.52 crores and Rs.3.16 crores (i.e. totaling to Rs.4.68 cores) towards the 20% advance against the work order to the account of M/s Rashtriya Stainless Steel, Bhubaneswar maintained with SBI, Axix Bank, Unit-IV, BBSR branch.
Suryamani insisted the complainant to sign on money receipts against receipt of above money. Accordingly, the son of complainant gave two money receipt of 4.68 Crores but no amount was transferred to his account.
When no work was assigned, the complainant had doubts on the conduct of the accused persons and sought information under RTI.
It has been learnt that accused Suryamani has been working as a clerk in the office of DTET (directorate of Technical Education & Training), Cuttack, whereas Amit Kumar is an unemployed. It is suspected that accused might have cheated many other persons too.
An investigation of the case is continuing to identify and nab the other accused persons involved in this case and in similar kind of frauds.
EOW has further requested the people to contact if they have been cheated by this group.
Ms Kalinga