Three persons have been arrested for allegedly duping actor Isha Sharvani, an NRI living in Australia, of ₹3 lakh by pretending to be Australian tax officials, the police said on Thursday.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Cyber Crime) Anyesh Roy said that the accused have been identified as Bhanuj Berry (24), Puneet Chadha (34) and Rishabh Khanna (23).
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Ms. Sharvani informed the police that she received calls allegedly from the Australian tax office.
“The caller told her that there were some violations in her tax returns and the Australian government had issued a warrant for her arrest. The caller took the details of her tax accountant, including the phone number,” Mr. Roy said.
The actor then received another call in which the caller claimed to be from her accountant’s office. The caller allegedly told her that there was an error while filing her tax returns and they didn’t tell her about the intimations sent by the Australian government. They said they would reimburse the amount, AUD 5,700 as she was not at fault, the police claimed.
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“The accused persons intimidated the victim into transferring money to them through Western Union [3,500 AUD] and RIA Money Transfer [2,500 AUD]. They stayed with her on the call for more than three hours until the transaction was over,” Mr. Roy said, adding that she later realised that she had been duped after which she approached the police.
Transaction details
During investigation, the police sought the transaction details from Western Union and RIA Money Transfer and reached the accused after which they were arrested.
The police said that the accused used to call up people in Australia, pretending to be from the Australian tax office and threatened to arrest them for tax violations. The accused have allegedly duped more than 100 people, they said.
The accused told the police that they were operating from a fake call centre in Vikaspuri. Chadha is an MBA while Berry has studied BCom from School of Open Learning and Khanna is a final-year student of BBA, the police said.