Detention orders served to a cross-state cheater

Hyderabad: After a hunt for more than two years in five different states the Rachkonda police managed to nab a notorious cheater in July 2019. The accused Soumen Banerjee, a native of Kolkata was involved in seven cases of cheating in different parts of Hyderabad.

Banerjee had migrated to the city in 2015 along with his family. He told his wife and locals that he works at the Visakhapatnam port in Andhra Pradesh as a customs officer.

Banerjee told people that he would sell them smuggled gold seized at half the market price. Believing him his neighbours gave him money in advance. Banerjee collected huge sums of money from people in Medipally in Hyderabad.

Initially, he gave gold coins to some of the people. Seeing this, many more people from the locality began giving him money to get gold coins.

Confident, he started two grocery stores and invited investments from people, by promising them huge returns.

He threw lavish parties at his villa and also took people on foreign trips. Between 2015 to 2017, Banerjee collected Rs 5 crore from people.

However, one day he suddenly shut shop and absconded along with his family. After a two-year-long hunt, he was nabbed from Odisha. He was detained under the Preventive Detention Act. He cheated people in other states using similar modus operandi. Detention orders were served against him on Saturday.