Hyderabad police arrest Delhi conman for Rs 15-crore fraud

HYDERABAD: Deepak Sharma, 27, of North East Delhi, a conman who duped people in a Rs 15-crore fraud, was arrested by Hyderabad city police on Friday. He allegedly collected money from innocent people under the guise of prize chits and money circulation.

According to Hyderabad police, Deepak Sharma, CEO of Diginal India Pvt.Ltd, registered in Ghaziabad, NCR Delhi, established a branch at Banjara Hills in Hyderabad in July 2021 and ran it till June 2022, offering a work-from-home job to digitise and scan old novels and books.

He informed the public of this scheme through newspapers and bulk SMS. While providing free scanners, he claimed that they had signed MOUs with NGOs in the United States and Europe. He also stated that the scheme required 10,000 pages to generate Rs 50,000 in revenue in 25 days. He also collected a caution deposit of Rs Rs 1,00,000 lakh from the victims.

The victims approached Deepak Sharma at his Banjara Hills office in response to the above messages for the above job. About 620 members joined him, from whom he had collected approximately Rs 15 Crores as a caution deposit amount and issued receipts between July 2021 and June 2022. The accused paid the victims for three to four months before closing the Banjara Hills and Ghaziabad offices in June 2022 and vanished without a trace.

A case was filed at the Banjara Hills police station under the appropriate sections. Following his arrest on Friday, the accused was produced in the XII ACMM Court for remand formalities.