mid-day had reported the arrest of the main accused in the racket in 'Puja for paison ki baarish costs man over Rs 1.2 crore,' on January 1
Ashok Gupta, alias Guruji
The Mumbai Crime Branch arrested the 'Guruji' behind the puja for paison ki baarish on Wednesday. The arrested accused was identified as Ashok Gupta alias Guruji, 45, a resident of Madhya Pradesh. mid-day had reported the arrest of the main accused in the racket in 'Puja for paison ki baarish costs man over Rs 1.2 crore,' on January 1.
According to the Crime Branch, Guruji has a spouse each in Jharkhand, Kamothe (Navi Mumbai) and Dharavi, Mumbai. He met the brain behind the money shower racket, Nishwit Kumar Shetty, who was arrested on Tuesday, in 2014, and they started operating as a team to cheat people.
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The police said that Shetty's father runs a hotel in Dharavi but he wasn't interested in the business. Shetty went to Dubai in 2008 and worked there with an insurance company for two years.
"After returning from Dubai, he got in touch with a fraudster cheating people in the name of antiques and collector's items. Shetty was told if he could get items such as tortoise nails, an Indian currency coin with Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar's picture on it and a R5 note signed by the first Indian RBI governor, CD Deshmukh, he could get huge amounts of money on selling them. But Shetty wasn't successful and stopped working for the gang," a police officer said.
Shetty used to blindly trust Guruji. The police said that Guruji told him he would be a millionaire by December 2020. He allegedly told Shetty that he would become the owner of any hotel that he eats at.
The police said on Guruji's instructions, Shetty started targeting people with the money shower racket. The duo earned crores of rupees from this and Shetty established his own transport business in Lucknow. The police are looking for other accused involved in the racket. They are suspected to have duped over 70 persons to the tune of Rs 40 crore.
Akbar Pathan, DCP Detection said, "The second accused was arrested on Wednesday night, further investigations are underway."
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