Woman Loses ₹89 Lakh As 33-Yr-Old Poses As RAW Agent, Offers Visa Help

Mumbai: Bengaluru Police arrested a 22-year-old man for cheating a woman of ₹89 lakh after posing as a RAW agent and offering her help with a visa. The woman said she met him on the flight, where he offered to help her after her application for Italian and Czech Republic visas was rejected.

Police officials said that the man claimed to be working in the Prime Minister’s Office.

According to a report in Hindustan Times, the accused, identified as Arhant Mohan Kumar Lakkavalli, claimed that he was working with the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). Police said the accused is a B.Com graduate and a real estate agent based in Rajajinagar, Bangalore.

The alleged incident came to light after the victim lodged a complaint with Bellandur police on April 26. In her complaint, the woman claimed that she had met Kumar on a flight to Kuala Lumpur in June 2019. She also said that her application for Italian and Czech Republic visas was rejected.

Though she had got the visa in January 2020, she wanted to know what was the reason behind the earlier rejection of her application. The woman further claimed that during the flight the accused posed as an IB officer and even offered to help her. The accused told the woman that her passport has been blacklisted and even she has been booked under the “Suspicious Terrorist Activities Act”.

Police sources said that when the woman sought Kumar’s help to clear her name, she said she would have to pay around Rs 4 crore to the Austrian and Czech Republic authorities and around Rs 2 crore to Italy. The woman told that in February and September 2021, she transferred Rs 89 lakh to Kumar for this, but when no response was received, she approached the police.

After the woman’s complaint, the police arrested the accused the next day. They also found that the accused had collected a lot of documents from the woman.

Deputy commissioner of police (Whitefield) S Girish said, “He has travelled to many countries in Europe and other places. He is not cooperating with the investigation. We suspect he might have cheated others as well as he did not have an income big enough to support these foreign trips. We have frozen his bank accounts and are yet to recover money.”

(With Hindustan Times Inputs)

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