Civil engineer impersonates army officer to dupe Delhi doctor on OLX

A civil engineer impersonated himself as an India Army officer cheated a doctor of Rs 1.75 lakh on OLX. According to the doctor, who works at the Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences (IHBAS) in Delhi, he got duped on OLX for Rs 1.75 lakh (approximately) when someone sold him the latest model of iPhone on the web portal. The doctor said the seller claimed to be an army officer.

Later, the police team looked at all technical aspects and gathered information at the ground-level to catch the culprit. It was found the main accused was Parvej Ahmad, a Haryana-based civil engineer. The police probed the bank account of Ahmad and found that a transaction of more than Rs 10 lakh was made from his account.

The 29-year-old disclosed that he was a civil engineer by profession. He revealed that locals in his village (Falandi Shah Chokha, Mewat) have duped several people by impersonating themselves as army officers on the pretext of selling vehicles and mobile phones on OLX. Therefore, "I also adopted the same method to do the scam", Ahmad added.

According to a report in Indian Express, advertisements are made of a low-priced vehicle/gadgets on OLX. The vehicles are advertised as "army-owned", and the fraudster shares fake documents of authentication. Besides, the conman puts a display picture of an army officer. The profile photos are taken from Army fan pages or Google search results.

The seller then proposes two options: Get the vehicle home delivered or come and meet at the airport. Either way, he asks for an advance amount upfront for delivery or gate pass fee, and vanishes once the transaction is complete.