Three arrested for running fake travel agency

Kolkata: Three persons including a senior official of a tour agency have been arrested for duping people under the pretext of organising foreign trips for people.

The accused used to publish advertisements in various newspapers and elsewhere attracting attention of people with various offers. The tour agency used to operate from the city. They used to collect a huge amount of money from people with the promise to arrange a whole foreign trip for them. After taking the money, they used to shift their office at some other place.

On the basis of two separate complaints, the city police initiated a probe in this regard. After starting an investigation, police came to know that the tour agency in the name of 'Skylark Travels' had duped many people.

A Bangalore-based victim, M R Shashidhara, told police that the tour agency had arranged a trip for them in to the city in 2017.

As a result they had also paid them over Rs 35 lakh for flights and hotels for a trip to Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand in 2018.

The agency had later sent them the flight tickets and hotel booking certificates through e-mail. They soon realised that all of them were fake. Following the incident they lodged

a complaint.

One Abhisek Patra, a resident of Narendrapur, had also fallen victim and got duped of Rs 1.24 lakh.

The victim had paid the money as an advance sum for a trip to Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.

He registered a complaint after he found that the flight tickets given to him were false.

After conducting a search, police arrested Rupayan Gupta, managing director of the company and Subhankar Mondal and Akash Pathak in this connection.

Police came to know during the interrogation that Gupta was the main accused. The investigating officers are also probing if others are involved in the incident.