Youth arrested for lottery fraud in UP, Rs 10 lakh recovered

Agra, June 19 (IANS) The Agra police have arrested a youth from Uttar Pradesh's Moradabad in connection to a lottery fraud.

Police have recovered Rs 10 lakh from accused Mohammad Shoaib's possession. The cash contained bundles of bogus currency bills of Rs 2000, 500, 200 and 100.

The accused said that he travelled across towns, duping people in the name of a lottery. The fake currency notes recovered from him seemed real, and this was why people fall into his trap.

People use to give him real currency and he scam them saying they had won the lottery. Later, he gave them fake notes, officials said.

According to Agra's Hariparvat police SHO Arvind Kumar, individuals were unaware of the game of fake-real notes.

Meanwhile, officials believe that Shoaib could not have scammed so many people by circulating fake notes on his own. "It should be thoroughly probed, and the mastermind of the gang responsible for printing such genuine-looking bogus notes should be identified."

Kumar said that a gang dealing in similar counterfeit notes was caught in Agra not long ago. "Since illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators are heavily involved in this scam, there should be an investigation whether Shoaib's ties are also linked to the neighbouring country," he said.