DIMAPUR, July 30 � Dimapur police has busted a fraudsters� network, suspected to be one of the biggest in North-eastern region and arrested a 34-year-old conman long wanted for duping gullible locals here of crores of rupees by tricking them into believing his art of doubling their money. He was arrested from Lakhimpur district of Assam on July 24.
Briefing mediapersons, SP Dimapur Liremo Lotha said the mastermind behind the fraud, identified as one Abu Sayed, had first become known in 2008 after a woman had brought it to the attention of the police when an amount of Rs 15 lakh loaned to another woman could not be recovered as she had been conned out of it by the fraudster. The case had also been reported by the local dailies.
Dimapur police, on receipt of the information, had then registered a case and launched a formal investigation. On confirming the identity of the accused and his whereabouts, a team of Dimapur police had departed for Lakhimpur on September 2, 2008. However, the accused had fled the scene before he could be apprehended.
The police team had, at that time, also chanced on three Naga women as well as one non-local, Jamal Choudhary, who had been illegally detained in the conman�s residence. Rs 45,000 had been reportedly demanded from Choudhary�s wife for his safe release. The four had been rescued by Dimapur police and brought back home.
Meanwhile, having evaded the police, Abu Sayed continued with his trickery duping more and more victims into parting with their money. However, Dimapur police had also kept track of the case and, based on confirmed inputs of the whereabouts of the accused, sent a police team to Lakhimpur for the second time on July 23 last.
With the active assistance of Lakhimpur police, the conman was finally apprehended on July 24 from Lakhimpur town and brought to Dimapur on July 25.
It was informed that preliminary investigations have confirmed the trail of the accused in other Northeastern States, including Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh.
The first victims here in Nagaland, mostly females, were reportedly approached by the first wife of the accused, one Khusboo, at Toluvi village, Dimapur. The clever conman won over their confidence by initially doubling the small amounts of cash brought to him. With word spreading fast, a chain of innocent victims were soon being lured to Lakhimpur wherein they were stripped off their hard-earned money.
The SP said this was the modus operandi of the accused � doubling small amounts at first to win over the victims and then going in for the kill as the deposit gets large enough.
Statements made by many of his victims say that the accused tricked them into bringing more and more money which he finally kept back and gave away packets containing burnt and plain paper.
The conman also made life threats to several police officers after the police team�s first visit to Lakhimpur. He had reportedly made calls to some Dimapur police officers stating that he has influential friends in various places and that he would fix Nagaland police if he was pursued further.
Interestingly, the accused was earlier arrested by Assam Police four years back and Rs 1.55 lakh seized from his possession. He was, however, released after a two-week spell in jail.
With only a handful of people stepping forward till date, police hoped that more would soon come out to testify against the fraudster.
