The man posed to be an employee of state-run steelmaker. (Representational)
A man was arrested in Kolkata on Saturday for allegedly duping individuals and corporates of crores of rupees by falsely posing as a marketing official of state-run steel maker SAIL in a business portal, police said.
Acting on a complaint lodged by a company Pasupati Engineering on July 26, the Puducherry Police approached the West Bengal Criminal Investigation Department for help to arrest the alleged culprit.
The CID accompanied the Puducherry Police team during the investigation, and discovered that the suspect Shyam Maitra had put up at a five state hotel on EM Bypass in Kolkata.
With help from the hotel authorities when Maitra was checking out, the CID team nabbed him on the charge of duping many people, police said.
Maitra, a resident of Durgapur in West Bengal, posed as an Assistant General Manager of SAIL in a marketing business web portal and used to ask customers to buy the products of SAIL and send money to his account through RTGS, a statement said.
It was learnt that the company placed order for 35 mt steel, but the accused told them that SAIL would not supply less than 100 mt. The company made a payment of Rs.58.32 lakh through RTGS, it added.
During the interrogation, the accused admitted his guilt. It is suspected he had been in the business of duping people by various means since 2014.