2 Men Who Planted Drugs On Actor Cheated Others Too In Same Way: Cops

Two men who allegedly cheated a 27-year-old actor from the city by allegedly planting drugs on her and sending her to Sharjah, UAE, had victimised four more persons in the same way, police said on Tuesday.

Ravi Bobhate and Anthony Paul, the accused, were produced before a court which sent them in police custody till May 4, a police official said in Mumbai.

Four more people have now come forward with similar complaints against them, the crime branch official said.

The accused allegedly sent Chrisann Pereira, a city-based actor, to Sharjah, telling her that auditions for a Hollywood web series had been arranged there.

On April 1, on landing in Sharjah, she was arrested for drug possession. It is suspected that the drugs were concealed in a memento which one of the accused had given to her to hand it over to someone in the UAE.

The duo later allegedly demanded Rs 80 lakh from Pramila Pereira, her mother, to rescue her. Pramila Pereira then approached Vakola police who booked them for cheating.

After Chrisann's brother narrated the whole story on Instagram, four more persons approached the Mumbai crime branch and said they were cheated by the accused with the same modus operandi.

The accused sent them to Dubai with various promises and planted drugs in their baggage, they alleged.

After the complainants got arrested for drug possession, the accused asked for money from their family members to rescue them, the complainants told police.

One of the victims of this scam, Phelan Futado, is still in Sharjah in a drugs case, the official said, adding that a probe was on.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)