Posing as employees of a Japanese pharmaceutical company, two people duped a Bengaluru business consultant of ₹50 lakh. They allegedly promised to buy raw minerals which he had purchased from a company based in West Bengal as per their instructions. The businessman, Shivakumar Kunchithapatham (60), a resident of Ramagondanahalli, filed a complaint with the Whitefield police on Wednesday.
Shivakumar works as a freelance pharmaceutical consultant and posted an advertisement online offering consultation services to pharmaceutical companies. On October 17, a man who falsely identified himself as Kiyoshi Mizuguchi, an executive director of a well-known Japanese pharma company, reportedly contacted him via an email offering to make him the head of a company that was going to be set up in Bengaluru. Shivakumar told the police that the man asked him to buy samples of mineral from a West Bengal-based company and gave him the number of one Ruchika Singh, who was a sales representative there. The conman also offered to source future raw material from him for commission that ran into crores of rupees, according to the police.
“We believe that the conman was using Mizuguchi’s name to convince the victim that this was a genuine business deal,” said a police officer.
Excited by this offer, Shivakumar contacted the mining company in West Bengal and spoke to the sales manager. She offered to ship samples of the minerals to Bengaluru at a cost of ₹2.1 lakh per sample. “Five shipments were made for which Shivakumar paid ₹10.5 lakh of his own money,” said the police.
Trip to Dubai
Soon after the deal, the man posing as the Japanese pharma executive officer called the businessman and asked for another 10,000 samples of the mineral so that his representatives could buy the shipment in bulk. “In his complaint, Shivakumar said this Mizuguchi also told him that the money was ready and the company representative would hand over the cash to him and requested that they meet in Dubai on October 27. He was also told that they would give him a contract for ₹16.5 crore as commission to source more raw materials for them,” said a police officer.
Shivakumar called the same representative of the West Bengal company seeking more samples for which he was asked to wire ₹13.6 lakh. Shivakumar paid the money online and went to Dubai to get the money released from the company. He was asked to book a room in the InterContinental Dubai - Festival City, which he did from his personal funds. “There he met a foreign national who identified himself as Rex and claimed to be an employee of the Japanese firm. We are unable to determine his nationality yet,” said the police.
Rex showed him a suitcase full of US dollars and then asked Shivakumar to transfer ₹35.5 lakh to a bank account as a processing fee to get the ₹16.5 crore deposited into his account.
Fake U.S. embassy email
Suspecting something fishy, Shivakumar returned home without paying the processing fee. However, on November 7, he received an email from ‘americaembassy001@usa.com’ stating that the $30 million would be deposited in his account if he paid the processing fee of ₹35.5 lakh. The email also warned that the amount would be returned to the company, if the money was not paid immediately. Thinking that the mail was genuine and had come from the U.S. embassy, Shivakumar arranged for the money and transferred it to the account mentioned in the mail. Before wiring the money, he called up Rex and other people he was in touch with and confirmed the transaction.
The fraud came to light as soon as the money was transferred: Mizuguchi and Rex switched off their mobile phones. After repeated attempts to call them, Shivakumar realised that he had been cheated and approached the police.
The Whitefield police have taken up a case under various sections of the IT Act. “We are also tracking down the representative of the West Bengal company who has been named accused in the case along with Rex and the man claiming to be Mizuguchi,” said a senior police officer.
