The Mumbai Police Crime Branch has busted a ‘rice puller’ racket, wherein people were being convinced to ‘invest in machines that test the quality of copper iridium’, a metal so strongly magnetic that it can attract grains of rice from several inches away. The five arrested accused are alleged to have cheated at least 12 people to the tune of nearly ₹2 crore till date.
The Crime Branch Unit XI busted the racket after they received a tip-off about a group of people staying in a bungalow in Evershine Nagar, Malad, being involved in some suspicious activities. A Unit XI team subsequently raided the bungalow and found five men who were allegedly in possession of items like electronic equipment, anti-radiation suits, and forged documents in the name of several government agencies. The accused were taken into custody for questioning.
“The accused revealed to us that they were running a rice puller racket, where one of them would pose as a buyer of copper iridium and another would pose as a supplier. They would seek out businessmen with the ability to invest crores of rupees in business ventures and ‘introduce’ them to the buyer and seller, telling them that copper iridium objects are worth crores and used in top secret projects by government research agencies,” a Crime Branch officer said.
The officer said the accused would also invite their victims to watch a demonstration of the copper iridium objects to sell their lie. “The accused would mix iron particles with grains of rice used for the supposed demonstration while a pot with a magnet hidden inside it would be placed near it so that the rice particles would be pulled towards it. The accused would then tell the victims that a single object could be sold for as high as ₹6,000 crore if it attracted rice grains from one inch away and ₹35,000 crore if it did the same from five inches away. The lack of knowledge that most people have about copper iridium would help convince them,” the officer said.
The police also found forged documents in the name of the Defence Research and Development Organisation, supposedly certifying their company as authorised to deal in copper iridium.
The accused have allegedly confessed to have cheated one person from Navi Mumbai to the tune of ₹1.35 crore and 11 others across the State to the tune of ₹65 lakh so far. The police said they have been remanded in police custody till October 14 and that more such cases are expected to come to light in the days to come.
The racket is said to be predominant in South Indian states and objects made of copper iridium are also believed to bring good fortune to those who own them, adding to their value. Several web pages on the internet mention that copper iridium objects are used in the manufacture of satellites and rockets, as also “to pull off scams in the Indian subcontinent.”
