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A'bad cops clip conman's wings

The accused posed as a flight ticketing and advertising agent to dupe prospective customers.

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After tracking him for nearly a month, Navrangpura police finally nabbed a conman who duped people using flight booking and advertising as fronts.

Parth Bhatt, a resident of Abhilasha apartments at Anandnagar crossroads, was arrested on Wednesday based on a complaint filed by Harshit Patel. Bhatt allegedly cheated Patel to the tune of Rs 4.4 lakh by promising to book six US-Ahmedabad return tickets.

Patel, a resident of Ansh Residency in Navrangpura, had filed a complaint against Bhatt in March. In his complaint, Patel has stated that he needed six return tickets for his relatives who want to attend a family function in Ahmedabad on July 15.

Patel says he was put in touch with Bhatt, who claimed to be a ticketing agent, by his old friend Vishnu Desai.

At their meeting in February, Bhatt had assured him confirmed tickets for the US- Ahmedabad round trip. Patel says he gave him Rs 2.80 lakh for four return tickets. Patel has said he later paid Bhatt Rs1.60 lakh for two more return tickets.

When Patel checked the status of the tickets on the internet, he found the first four tickets showing ‘cancelled’ status. Bhatt was asked to re-book the tickets. However, the newly issued tickets as well as the remaining two tickets again showed up as cancelled on the website.

“When I tried to recover my money, he kept making empty promises. I then asked my friend Desai to intervene. When he called Bhatt and asked him to pay up the Rs 4.4 lakh he owed me, Bhatt filed a police complaint alleging Desai was a money-lender and was threatening him,” Patel said.

During their investigations, the police found that Bhatt was a serial conman. They then hatched a plan to nab him.

“We promised him over the phone that we would take strict action against Desai. He finally got trapped in our net,” said RN Gadhvi, sub inspector at Navrangpura police station.

Bhatt is alleged to be involved in several other cheating cases, which police suspect could run into crores.

A police probe has revealed that under the banner of Shivanad publicity, Bhatt did business deals worth Rs 25.4 lakh with Bhimji Nakrani, owner of Abhivyakti Communications. However, cheques given by Bhatt eventually bounced.

“We have clubbed Nakrani’s cheating complaint with that of Patel," the police stated, adding that Bhatt has cheated several other advertising agencies by posing as a sub-agent to publish their ads.

The  probe also revealed that the conman had included big names like Karsanbhai Patel of Nirma and Gautam Adani of Adani Enterprise as his clients to impress people.
 

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