Bhubaneswar: An MBA graduate, who allegedly looted jewellery stores in Bhubaneswar and Puri by showing bogus payment transactions, has been nabbed by Commissionerate Police from Kolkata.
The accused has been identified as Rajiv Prabhas Gupta, a native of Mumbai.
Bhubaneswar DCP Umashankar Dash said that the 37-year-old was arrested on the basis of a complaint filed by a jewellery store owner. He had visited the store in Bhubaneswar on September 15.
The DCP said that Gupta cheated the store by showing a fake screenshot of an online payment made through the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) digital payment gateway for gold and silver ornaments worth over Rs 1 lakh.
“The accused would initially transfer Rs 10 to the UPI account of the shop or salesman to win trust. He would then claim to have made the necessary digital payments for the purchase and show a bogus screenshot on his mobile phone. The unsuspecting victims would hand over the articles to Gupta, who would sneak out of the store in no time,” Dash said.
He then targetted a jewellery store in Puri before leaving the state. He kept shuttling from Delhi to Imphal and finally, Kolkata where he was nabbed by police, which busted his location after mounting technical surveillance, he said.
Gupta reportedly lead a lavish lifestyle and frequently changed cities.
Urging shopkeepers to be extra cautious while making monetary transactions, the DCP said that they would be sharing the profile of the accused with police stations in Delhi and Imphal to ascertain his involvement in similar crimes under their jurisdictions.
