Vikas Gautam, created fake profiles on social media as an IPS officer
A man who has passed till Class 8 conned at least a dozen women of lakhs of rupees by posing as an Indian Police Service, or IPS, officer, the Delhi Police said in a statement.
The alleged conman, Vikas Gautam, created fake profiles on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook under the name Vikas Yadav.
To make the profile look authentic, he even posed with a government car that had a red beacon.
One of the women he conned is a doctor working at Delhi's Sanjay Gandhi Hospital. They had started chatting online. One day, using details he took from the doctor after winning her trust, he withdrew Rs 25,000 from the doctor's bank account.
Eventually, when the doctor discovered he was a fraud, she decided to go to the police. But the fake IPS officer threatened her, saying he has political connections, the police said.
Based on the doctor's complaint, the police started technical surveillance and finally arrested him. He has cheated some dozen women of lakhs of rupees by posing as an IPS officer, the police said.
Vikas Gautam is a resident of Madhya Pradesh's Gwalior, Delhi Police officer Harinder Singh said, adding the accused did some welding course at an industrial training institute after passing Class 8.
The police said Vikas Gautam also worked at a restaurant in north Delhi's Mukherjee Nagar, a hub of civil service exam coaching centres in the national capital. He used to see students preparing for civil services at the area and likely got the idea to impersonate an IPS officer from there.
The police found Vikas Gautam has a criminal history. He had been in jail on charges of cheating in Uttar Pradesh and Gwalior.