Guntur youth cheats air travellers, held

New Delhi: One Modela Venkata Dinesh Kumar of Guntur has been arrested by the Indira Gandhi International Airport police here on charges of cheating domestic air passengers in the country..

Sanjay Tyagi, deputy commissioner of police, IGI Airport, in a statement here on Monday said that Dinesh Kumar targetted air travellers in Indian airports posing as a student of a reputed university in Delhi.

Dinesh Kumar used to buy a ticket, enter the airports as a regular traveller and "miss" catching the flight. He then would approach the travellers as a "student in distress" and seek their help to buy a ticket to Visakhapatnam, his destination. He would tell the passengers that he only possessed a part of the amount required and needed the rest to buy the ticket. He would promise them to repay the amount once he reached his destination. He would ask the passengers to transfer the money to his account.

On December 19, one such traveller, Shah Yash Rakesh, a resident of Baroda arrived at Delhi IGI Airport T-3 (Terminal Three) and was waiting to collect his baggage from the conveyor belt. Dinesh Kumar approached him and repeated his story. Kumar told him that he had only 6,500 whereas the ticket cost to Visakhapatnam was Rs 15,000.

Rakesh transferred Rs 9,250 by Google Pay into Kumar's account. But, when the money was not returned to him, he registered a complaint with the police.

The culprit was nabbed from the IGI Airport T-2 terminal on December 30 while attempting to cheat another passenger similarly.

Sanjay Tyagi said Kumar had cheated several passengers in the last five years. At least seven complaints had been registered against the accused in Mumbai, Benguluru, Hyderabad and Delhi airports. There could be many more victims, Tyagi said and asked them to come forward with their complaints.