What could have been a con job ‘lost in translation’ was thwarted by an alert autorickshaw driver, who overheard his passenger’s conversation and had him arrested for fraud.
Autorickshaw driver listens to passenger’s conversation over phone, learns he has duped many of lakhs of rupees
What could have been a con job ‘lost in translation’ was thwarted by an alert autorickshaw driver, who overheard his passenger’s conversation and had him arrested for fraud. On Monday, Yeshwant Rajaram Shinde, 46, learnt from his passenger Sachin Shah’s chat on his cell phone that Shah was planning to escape with a huge sum of money he had allegedly collected from people.
The police found that Shah, a resident of Rajkot in Gujarat, had allegedly duped several people to the tune of lakhs by promising them jobs in Bangkok and Hong Kong.
Shah allegedly hired Shinde’s autorickshaw from Vile Parle and asked him to take him to Borivili quickly. “I thought he was only in a hurry, but I grew suspicious when he started talking over his cell phone,” said Shinde, a resident of Vile Parle.
“He was talking in Gujarati. Though I do not know the language well, I figured out that he was talking about closing an office and going into hiding for a few days,” said Shinde. “When he offered me Rs5,000 to drive him till Vapi, I realised that something was wrong.”
A quick-thinking Shinde kept calm and stopped the vehicle near a beat chowki in Borivili (East). “He told Shah that he would be back in a minute. He approached the constable in the chowki and asked the officer to arrest Shah,” said inspector Mitesh Karle of Kasturba Marg Police station. He added that the police found Rs3.83 lakh in Shah’s bag.
On being interrogated, Shah told the police he had promised to send eight job aspirants from Gujarat to Bangkok and Hong Kong on a work permit. He had brought them to Mumbai with him. “They were put up at Ratna Mahal Hotel in Vile Parle. After collecting the money from them, Shah left on the pretext of getting the currency converted and carry out other formalities,” said Karle.
The job aspirants were called to the police station. “We did not know he was a cheat. He had an office in Rajkot and claimed that he had sent several people abroad for work,” said Vandraj Kanojia, who hailed from Surat. Police said Shah had earlier collected Rs1.5 lakh from Kanojia and others.
“He seems to have duped several job aspirants. It is a huge racket with several people involved. A team will be sent to Rajkot to nab his accomplices,” said Karle.
The job aspirants also rewarded Shinde for his bravery.
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