New Delhi The IFSO unit of Delhi Police’s Special Cell has arrested an Italy-based Indian national, who was trying to cheat a senior bureaucrat by impersonating himself as the “Vice President of India”, an official said on Monday.
The arrested individual has been identified as Gagandeep Singh. One of his aides, Ashwani Kumar, was also apprehended.
Gagandeep Singh, an Indian national based in Italy since 2007, created a fake WhatsApp profile with the picture of the Vice President of India to cheat the bureaucrat. Another accused, identified as — Ashwani Kumar, was arrested for providing an OTP for the WhatsApp account to Singh, DCP, Intelligence Fusion & Strategic Operations (IFSO), Prashant Gautam, said.
“The accused also used to send messages to other government officials,” the police officer said.
Singh, a resident of Jammu, was living in Offanengo, Italy. After his arrest, police recovered two mobile phones from his possession. He created a fake WhatsApp account using a photo of the Vice-President of India and sent messages to senior government officials, Gautam said.
Police arrested Kumar first and Singh later, from IGI Airport.
“An information regarding the creation of a fake WhatsApp account using the photo of the Vice president of India was received at IFSO unit of Delhi Police. Accordingly, a case was filed in this regard,” the police officer said.
The details of the WhatsApp profile were obtained and the IP address of the sender was traced to Italy.
“The police team started working on all technical aspects. Immediately, raids were conducted and Kumar was apprehended,” the DCP said.
“After an extensive hi-tech investigation and analysing technical details, Singh, who was living in Italy, was arrested,” he added.
Before creating the WhatsApp account, Singh watched several YouTube videos and got the contacts of senior government officials online. Later, he obtained an OTP to create a WhatsApp account of an Indian mobile number from Kumar, the police said.
“After creating a WhatsApp account, he put the picture of the Vice President of India and started contacting senior government officials and sought favours from them,” Gautam said.
Singh had been living in Offanengo, Italy since 2007 along with his family. He studied till Class 9 in India, and cleared the Class 12 exam later in Italy. He works as a labourer at a company in Italy.