3 Arrested for Duping Luck By Chance Actress Isha Sharvani of Rs 3 Lakh

Delhi police arrested three men, who duped "Luck by Chance" actress Isha Sharvani of AUD 5,700 by pretending to be Australian Tax Officers.

The three accused have been Identified as Bhanuj Berry, Puneet Chadha and Rishabh Khanna.

According to Delhi Police's PRO: "In a major breakthrough, the Cyber Crime Unit (CyPAD) has arrested three men who had duped a renowned NRI female actor/performer, Ms. Isha Sharvani, who now lives in Perth, Australia, pretending to be from Australian Tax Office.

According to Police, "The accused persons intimidated the actress into transferring money to them via western Union (3500 AUD) and RIA Money Transfer (2500 AUD). They stayed on call with her for more than three hours until the transaction was over."

Delhi Police's Cyber Crime Unit, said that the accused persons adopted a unique Modus Operandi in which they called up people in Australia, pretending to be from the Australian Tax Office and threatened to arrest them for tax violations. The victims, more often than not, got intimidated and coughed up huge sums of money to stay out of trouble.

A resident of Perth, Sharvani approached the Cyber Crime Unit, Delhi in which she stated that she received calls from someone who claimed to be calling on behalf of the Australian Tax Office.

"The caller told her that there were some violations in her tax returns because of which the Australian Government had issued a warrant for her immediate arrest. The caller then took the details of her tax accountant, including the phone number," said DCP Aynesh Roy.

Detailed interrogation revealed that the accused Puneet Chadha has studied Master of Business Administration, while Bhanuj Berry has studied B.Com from School of Open Learning and Rishabh Khanna is in the final year of Bachelor of Business Administration.

During interrogation, they disclosed that they operate from a fake call centre in Vikaspuri. They specifically target people living in Australia by pretending to be Australian Tax Officials. They made VoIP calls and used number spoofing software for displaying Australian numbers and also talked in fluent Australian English accent.

They admitted to having duped more than 100 persons living in Australia so far in the last eight months to the tune of several crores of rupees.