NGO founder held for multi-crore con

LUCKNOW: In what could well have been a plot for a Bollywood flick, a gang of cons managed to dupe both senior government officials and gullible citizens of their money by posing as the chief minister, director general of police, chief secretary, Bollywood actress and other important personalities over the phone.
Besides the articulacy of the callers, it was the trick of spoofing the number of the VVIP in question as their own that made the cons more convincing to the victims.
The kingpin of the eight-member gang Mohammad Nisar alias Sahil was held for making misleading calls to senior administrative and police officials in the state. He had been running an NGO Sahil Foundation from its BN road, Lalbagh office. Sahil had roped in several Bollywood stars for events and also got on board many IAS, IPS and senior officials as honorary members.
Sahil used a blue-beaconed ambassador car with UP-32 BG series number and presented himself or any member of his gang as an IAS officer to potential victims. The meetings were organized at places such as VIP guest houses, restaurants located inside prominent hotels or within the ambassador car parked around 'official' places Lal Bahadur Shastri Bhavan, Bapu Bhavan and Jawahar Bhavan.
On Friday, along with the fake IAS officer, the gang of eight cons that included two policemen was arrested. Hazratganj police recovered four motor vehicles equipped with fake secretariat passes and Rs 6,43,000 from the gang. The victims targeted by the gang coughed up crores in the name of facilitation fee.
Lucknow police were getting inputs about the gang for the past few months but it was finally a deal gone sour that landed the gang in trouble. Sahil in the meantime was only getting stronger by making connections with powerful people. Special task force of UP was also tipped about the gang and began chasing it. Sahil's movements were followed for close to four months before he finally landed behind bars.
Dinesh Yadav, circle officer of Hazratganj revealed details of a case. Saadatganj resident Nand Prakash Mishra was targeted by the gang last month. Mishra had a piece of land in Talkatora but it was acquired by Awas Vikas Parishad long time ago. One of his acquaintances introduced him to Sahil, who started throwing up names and made a few calls to required officials in the first meeting itself. Mishra was asked to pay up Rs 70 lakh to bag a no-objection-certificate from the housing body. "Obviously, the deal did not go through and Mishra lodged a complaint," said Yadav.
Similarly Sahil convinced people to pay him money to be sure of hassle-free executions of big projects such as slaughter houses, hospitals, colleges, forest related clearances etc.Sahil also met senior officials after making spoof calls to them and took money under different pretexts such as funding for his NGO or advertisement of magazine run by his NGO.
Further probes were on to find out who all were targeted similarly and how exactly were senior bureaucrats conned. From the initial probes, it was clear that Sahil had spoofed over hundreds of numbers including those in chief minister's office, principal secretaries of various wings, and senior police officials.
He used remaining members of his gang as personal assistants, special duty officials, gunners, and peons as required.
The seven more arrested were identified as head constable Doodhnath, constable Ram Sajan, Jummeruddin alias Baba, Jafaruddin alias Jafar, Pradeep Shukla, Mohammad Umar alias Murfy and Asad Ali Jafry.