Cyber fraudster arrested for cheating aspiring artistes

Delhi Police have arrested a cyber fraudster, who posed as a casting agent for a music company to cheat aspiring actors and models by offering them fake roles in music videos, an official said on Tuesday.

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The accused, identified as Rahul Dev (33), is a resident of Faridabad and he was nabbed from Chandigarh, he added.

The case came to light when a woman from Shahdara filed a complaint alleging she had been approached via social media by a man claiming to be from a music company’s casting team. The woman was informed she had been shortlisted for a role in a music video and was asked to pay Rs 20,462 for flight bookings to attend an audition in Mumbai.

The fraudsters shared fake flight tickets. Once the payment was made on March 25, all contact was cut off and she was blocked, said the police. An FIR was filed on April 11.

A team traced the fraudulent bank account to a woman named Ekta Sharma, who admitted that it was opened on instructions from Rahul Dev, who had been operating it. After tracking his digital footprint, the police apprehended Dev from Chandigarh on May 6.

“Investigations revealed that Dev, along with a co-conspirator named Ashish, defrauded at least 17 aspiring artistes using this modus operandi. Rahul posed as a renowned director, while Ashish impersonated female casting agent through voice modulation,” the officer said. “The duo used fake social media accounts to gain victims’ trust and lure them into transferring money for bogus flight bookings,” he added.