Illegal lottery: Four nabbed in Delhi for duping 500 people of ₹5 crore

Four young, educated men, including a management graduate and a techie, have been arrested for running an online lottery racket and cheating at least 500 people of at least ₹5 crore .

The four men were identified as Narender Sharma (32), an MBA graduate, Rakesh Abrol (41), a graduate from Jammu University, Sunil Kumar Yadav (31) a BA graduate from Delhi University, and Tanuj Talwar (32) a B.Tech from IP University, Delhi.

Police said all four had met at an IT firm where they decided to cheat people and earn easy money.

On February 28, the police got information that a gang of cheats that has allegedly cheated more than 500 people across India was hiding in Delhi, additional commissioner of police (crime) Rajiv Ranjan said.

“It was learnt that two serving lieutenant-colonels of the Indian Army had lodged a complaint against the gang. After gathering information about one of the gang members, a team raided a premises in Sarai Julena near New Friends Colony and arrested Narender Sharma,” Ranjan said.

The additional commissioner said after Sharma’s interrogation, his team arrested his three associates — Abrol, Yadav and Talwar — from different locations in the city.

“Sharma told police during interrogation that in 2009, he had joined a call centre in Noida as a tele-caller where he became friends with Abrol, Talwar and Yadav,” said Ranjan.

“Later, Sharma and the others started an e-commerce and online shopping portal named Shopit. All the four accused were appointed as directors of their company. They used to cheat people by luring them to invest in their company and promising good returns. They used to run a lottery system through which they cheated hundreds of victims across country over the years,” Ranjan said.