Union min’s ‘personal secy’, 2 others con Lucknow brothers out of ₹71L
In his police complaint, one of the two brothers said the fraudsters had promised to do them official favours in exchange for money paid on multiple occasions, but later threatened to kill them.
Two brothers, one of whom is a businessman, from the state capital claimed they’d been conned out of ₹71 lakh over many days by three fraudsters, one of whom claimed to be the personal secretary of the Union cabinet minister.
In his police complaint, one of the two brothers said the fraudsters had promised to do them official favours in exchange for money paid on multiple occasions, but later threatened to kill them.
An FIR under Indian Penal Code sections 382 (extortion), 420 (cheating) and others has been registered at Vibhuti Khand Police station after the complaint was lodged, said Ashish Srivastava, deputy commissioner of police-East.
One of the brothers, Ashish Kohli of Gomti Nagar, said his brother had sought help in connection with a case pending against him at the National Company Law Tribunal. That was when both the brothers met one Nikhil Gupta, Shikha Gupta and Varun Chauhan through a common friend, Kohli wrote in the police complaint
As per Kohli’s claim, Varun was introduced to them as the personal assistant of the cabinet minister, and they were also shown some photos in which Varun was seen accompanying the minister.
Kohli alleged that Nikhil demanded ₹12 lakh to settle the case at the NCLT. The complainant said they paid the amount to Nikhil as per their agreement, but the court order was never uploaded on the website. “When we asked about the delay in the uploading of the court order, Nikhil told us that the delay was due to a strike in the court. He later trapped him in another fraud. This time he lured us to get a project of ₹180 crore from the central government saying we will get ₹10 crore as advance in the bank account of our NGO,” he said.
He further said Nikhil introduced them to Varun, who later attempted to illegally grab land owned by one of the brothers of value ₹2 crore by showing a fake sale deed. “They demanded ₹2 crore as extortion and agreed to settle the issue after my brother paid them ₹50 lakh as ransom. They also forced me to cough up money and I gave them ₹2.5 lakh,” the complainant told police.
