: The Delhi Police describe Tiwari as a “daredevil and a cunning cheat” who extorted money by making sting videos and duped people using a lot of “confidence and attitude”.
His fearlessness, perhaps, goes back to this school days, when Tiwari exposed a wrongdoing. As a student of a government school in his village in Uttar Pradesh’s Faizabad district, he informed the school authorities that copying was rampant in school. But instead of believing him, the principal punished him.
“A few months later, when the then Education Minister of Uttar Pradesh visited his school, he told him what he had told the authorities. The same principal then rewarded him with ₹50 and took action,” said a police source.
From rags to riches
A few years later, he arrived in the Capital with only ₹70 in his pocket. Today, he is reported to have made over ₹10 crore through cheating and owns at least two flats in the city, said the police.
“He started his career by reading poems for the All India Radio’s Yuvavani programme every week. But he had bigger ambitions, which a school dropout like him could not fulfill easily,” said a police source. He then decided to work as a news stringer. His sound observational skills fetched him work, and he got his break in a news channel which was launching. He also started writing for a weekly column in a popular national Hindi daily, and brought out two publications of his own.
But his life changed when he met former Tehelka editor Tarun Tejpal in the early 2000s, said the police.
Raking in the moolah
“He was bedazzled by the fact that the journalist had a Z-plus security cover and that sting operations had brought Mr. Tejpal a lot of fame,” said a police officer.
He conducted several sting operations from there on, some of which were not aired in exchange of hefty amounts. For example, he busted several prominent Uttar Pradesh politicians in 2005, for which he purportedly received ₹5 crore. In between, he conducted more sting operations and tried to extort money such as one on a LPG gas pilferage. He was booked in the case as well, said the police.
He also purportedly told the police that extorting money through sting operations had become difficult since the Modi government came to power. To manage his business, he roped in Gaurav Sharma and together they hired boys to collect or deliver money without letting them know what the money was meant for.
