Man cheats 140 job applicants of ₹48 lakh, arrested from Panvel

Two years after a 48-year-old man cheated at least 140 job applicants by promising to get them a job in central excise and customs department, the Navi Mumbai crime branch managed to arrest him from Panvel.

The crime branch was on the lookout for Santosh Patil since November last year when a case was registered against him at Kharghar police station. Patil had approached a Kharghar housewife and introduced himself as a senior customs officer. Patil had met the woman after he got into a relationship with her aunt a few months ago.

According to the police, Patil is a resident of Nevali village in Panvel. In 2013, Patil was arrested for a similar con by the Pen police in Raigad.

In 2016, he jumped bail after he was released on a bond.

Officials said the accused approached a woman and told her he is an officer with the Central Customs and Excise department. He then offered to provide jobs to locals. Through word of mouth publicity, he managed to collect documents of various men and women for the position of constabulary staff, security guards and customs officers in the central excise department and the customs department.

Patil accepted ₹3,500 to ₹35,000 from the job applicants and promised to get them postings at locations like Digha and Nhava Sheva, said crime branch officials.

The accused was nabbed from a village near his Nevali residence. He also has a house in Pen, where the police suspect he used to live with his another wife and often visits there. Since November, he was on the move and would refrain from staying in one place, said officials.

The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) took over the investigations after the amount cheated was pegged at ₹48 lakh. “Based on our leads from the informants, we arrested him on Monday. The accused has been remanded in police custody till Friday,” said Vijay Waghmare, senior inspector at EOW, unit 2.

Patil has been booked on charges of cheating and impersonation under sections of the Indian Penal Code.