#240 please be careful and share it Man posing as merchant navy captain dupes people with job offers, arrested Mumbai, July 12 The Marine Drive police on Thursday last arrested a conman who posed as a captain of the merchant navy and duped several people of large sums of money by offering them jobs on cruise ships. While preliminary investigations have revealed that at least five persons became victims to the fraud, the police suspect the actual number could be much higher. In a novel strategy, a police team disguised as parking valets of a hotel and nabbed the accused Louis Lawrence (41) alias ‘Captain Mehra’, a resident of Ambernath. He has been remanded to police custody till July 14. He was arrested on a complaint lodged at the Marine Drive police station by Pratap Devappa Alva (58), a resident of Mangalore. The accused also has two previous cases of cheating registered against him at Colaba and Matunga police stations in 2005. “On June 1 this year, the complainant read an advertisement in a Mumbai paper called ‘Assignements Abroad Times’ dated May 31, which read: Urgently required for Louis Cruise Line - Chef, Steward and Cleaners. Route - Greece and Turkey. The advertisement asked those interested to contact Captain Mehra and gave a mobile number. Alva called on the number, and was promised a job by the so-called captain who set up a meeting at Ambassador Hotel in Churchgate on June 23. Alva was asked to bring his passport, a photocopy of the passport, 20 photographs, bank statements for the past three months, a doctor’s fitness certificate, and Rs 1 lakh,” said Senior Police Inspector Sanjay D Amrute of the Marine Drive police station. According to the police, Lawrence promised Alva a job as a housekeeper in Italy, and took the money and documents from him. Alva then returned to Mangalore. However, when he tried to contact Lawrence shortly afterwards, he found his mobile phone perpetually switched off. Realising he had been duped, Alva lodged a police complaint on July 8. “The complainant had described how the accused looked, and we started keeping a watch around Ambassador Hotel, which was his area of operation. We soon received information that he was going to be at the hotel to take money from another victim. A police team disguised as parking valets and laid a trap. As soon as he was spotted in the area, the team arrested him. So far, we have learnt that he had duped around four others in the past month, and investigations are on to ascertain whether others were also conned,” said Amrute.
Posted on: Mon, 22 Jul 2013 13:14:40 +0000
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