Mumbai police has arrested Anita Shirish Kulkarni (49) and Mobin Yusuf Mahafule (24) on the charges of cheating many e-commerce firms including Snapdeal. Anita is from Dombivli while Mobin is a resident of Naupada and they both used to dupe the e-commerce firms by exchanging the expensive iPhones with dummy.
DCP (Crime), Navi Mumbai Dilip Sawant stated, “After Snapdeal lodged a complaint against the ‘mother-son’ duo, crime branch sleuths raided their Kharghar flat and seized 17 iPhones worth a total Rs 8.16 lakh. We have urged other e-tailers to come forward and register complaints against them.”
The officers of Crime Branch told that they both had taken a flat on rent in Kharghar’s Eden Garden Sector-5 using fake documents by the name of Anita and Siddharth Chabra, posing as mother and son. They used to order iPhones with cash on delivery option and when the delivery boy came with their order, the lady used to engage him in conversation while the boy took the packet inside and exchanged it with a similar packet containing a dummy of the iPhone and gave back the parcel to the delivery boy, citing defective piece issue.
Dilip Sawant further adds, “Kulkarni and Mahafule have several similar cheating cases registered against them in Thane, Pune and Ahmedabad where they used the same modus operandi.”
This is what Prabhat Ranjan, Navi Mumbai police commissioner, stated, “The duo had purchased three iPhones from Snapdeal with cash-on-delivery option. When the package was delivered to their rented apartment in Kharghar, they swapped the delivered parcel with a similar box containing dummy models and returned it to the delivery boy claiming they were defective pieces.”
He added, “Sensing something was amiss, Snapdeal lodged a complaint with the crime branch department. An investigation revealed that Kulkarni and Mahafule had used fake identities to rent the flat as mother and son and had cheated other e-tailers using the same modus operandi.”
The mother-son duo has been booked under IPC sections 420, 465,468, 469, 471 and 34 by the Kharghar police.