Crime Branch nabs ‘CIA agent’

Mumbai resident would dupe women by claiming to be a spy

Men duping women by making tall claims is one thing, but claiming to be an agent of America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on a secret mission has left the police amused.

Central Crime Branch sleuths were alerted about the man by a woman from the city whom he had befriended posing as Robin Peter, an American Airline pilot. According to the police, he had come down to the city a couple of times and later claimed to be a British citizen working for the CIA. The woman alerted the police when he started pestering her to accompany him to Bangkok, Thailand. Sleuths advised the woman to call him to the city under the pretext of the Bangkok trip. He was arrested when he arrived.

The true identity of the man is now established as Prateek Mathur, 28, a resident of Mumbai, who claims to be an advocate of Bombay High Court. However, police are not buying that argument as well. They recovered a forged British passport from him.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Abhishek Goyal told

The Hindu that Prateek had created fake email IDs in the name of the CIA and mailed himself letters detailing his ‘secret mission’ in the country. “He has shared these with many women to impress them,” Mr Goyal said.

CCB sleuths are not discounting the possibility of human trafficking with Prateek luring young women and pushing them into prostitution.

“He has travelled many times to Bangkok. As of now, we don’t know how many women he has duped and taken to Bangkok. We have to probe what happened to them. There are strong leads about trafficking. We request any women duped by this man to contact us,” said Mr Goyal.