SA teenager dupes Bollywood fans

DURBAN: A teenager and his accomplice have allegedly duped South African fans of thousands of rands, promising them dates with Bollywood superstars Shah Rukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai in Johannesburg.
       
Nineteen-year old Mohammed Saleh, who uses the alias 'Yusuf Ebrahim', 'Ismail Tar' and his 20-year-old accomplice Shaheen Ebrahim were arrested by police at a five-star hotel in Johannesburg in a sting operation. They have appeared in court and been released on bail.

 

Saleh has been accused of fleecing his victims of up to 60,000 rands (Rs 3,60,000) in exchange for false promises of a day spent with Shah Rukh and tickets to see beauty queen and actress Aishwarya live in a concert.
       
Police said that Saleh had placed advertisements in several community newspapers in April in which he said Khan was for hire in South Africa from June 2006 to January 2007 for weddings, birthday parties and social events.

 

He placed another ad last month for a one-night-only concert with Rai in Johannesburg in September. He also printed fake tickets for the purported Rai concert, The Sunday Times reported.

 

Rai is in the Durban area of South Africa, shooting scenes with Hrithik Roshan for the film Dhoom2.

 

Saleh was arrested by the Johannesburg Fraud Squad last week after he attempted to elicit R25 000 (Rs 1,50,000) from a Johannesburg businessman at a five star hotel.

 

Police said he booked office suites for the day where he would meet his victims and paid cash for the suites.