Bhubaneswar: Cuttack Police arrested a transgender for allegedly duping the owner of a private hospital in Odisha’s Cuttack City for impersonating the state Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Empowerment and duping a hospital staff of Rs 46,500.
Police said that the accused has been identified as Soumya Ranjan Pradhan alias Lucky alias Sulagna, a resident of Kishore Nagar in Angul district of Odisha.
According to reports, on September 7, the accused made a call to the owner of the private hospital in Cuttack and identified him as the personal assistant of the Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Empowerment. The caller told the owner that the minister wished to speak to her personally and when the latter called back from her personal mobile phone, the imposter spoke to her posing as the minister, and asked her to speak to a woman seer, Maa Sibani Durga.
The fraudster then handed over the phone to a woman who said that she needed 31 kg pure ghee for a ‘hawan’ and requested the hospital manager to donate Rs 46,000 for the purpose.
In response, the hospital owner transferred Rs 46,500 from her account to the UPI ID provided by the ‘woman seer’. When she realised her folly, the hospital owner lodged a complaint with the police, Cuttack DCP Pinak Mishra said.
Later, the police nabbed the accused transgender. During interrogation, the accused admitted to committing the crime and revealed that they had duped several people, including senior officials and medicos, impersonating different personalities. He also confessed that he had learned the tricks of cyber fraud while he was staying in New Delhi.
A case has been registered at the Cyber and Economic Offence police station in Cuttack.
