New Delhi: The Delhi Police's Economic Offences Wing on Sunday said that they had arrested a chemical engineer from Uttarakhand's Dehradun for allegedly presenting himself as an empanelled vendor with the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and cheating more than 31 people by promising them fake Make in India contracts with various defence establishments.
The police have identified the accused K Venkata Krishna Murthi, who allegedly cheated the complainants and victims across the country through his firm M/s Magnitech Engineers. Officials said that Murthi would induce his victims to pay consultancy and fees protection upfront and would then swindle them by disappearing with the money.
The police said that he would promise his victims that he could get them registered with various defence establishments all over the country so that they could "Make in India" contracts from them. He also allegedly represented himself as a Defence consultant and assured his victims that he would help them get big defence orders from purchase orders to tenders in the Ministry of Defence, CSD canteens and international agencies.
While Murthi used to say that he would return the consultancy fees if he failed to get his victims their desired orders in 6 months, this never happened.
The police initially received a complaint with 20 victims but on Sunday said that more people had come forward to join the investigation and that now around 31 had been cheated by Murthi of more than Rs 3.88 crore.
They said that the accused would first execute consultancy and fees protection agreements with the victims and then make away with this money.
The EOW team investigating the case said that the victims were examined and the original agreements executed by Murthi were seized. After verifying the payments made to the accused, the police identified Murth's and his business' accounts and debit-froze them after tracing the cheated money in those accounts.
In the course of their investigation, the police also found that Murthi had hired several sales executives across the country to induce more victims and also used social media to trap more victim companies. They also found that Murthi had also opened an office in Mumbai and was trying to dupe more firms from there. The police added that they are now trying to trace more victims from other states.
Joint CP, Chhaya Sharma, (EOW), said that a notice was issued to Murthi to join the probe but he did not, following which teams were sent out to apprehend him. The police said that Murthi kept moving from one place to another and was finally traced in Dehradun, from where he was held.