Hyderabad: Actor, wife held for cheating, promising roles in ads

Hyderabad: Film actor Apurva Ashwin Dawda alias Armaan Arjun Kapoor of Pune, and his wife Natasha Kapoor alias Nazish Memon of Maharashtra, who allegedly cheated people promising a role in promotional advertisements and collected huge amounts from them were arrested by the Cyberabad police on Monday. They had cheated a couple of Rs 14.12 lakh promising a role to their daughter in a ad of a biscuit company, said DCP (crimes) Cyberabad Kalmeshwar Shingeswar.

In December the victim's family had gone to a shopping mall at Kondapur where Memon introduced herself as a person representing a 'cosmopolitan modelling agency' and enquired if they were interested in a role for a TV commercial for their daughter. She convinced them saying they are in the mall to select children for modelling in TV advertisements and photo shoot for business promotions of various products and services. The selected candidates will get to act with noted actors.

The DCP said to make the victims believe, the fraudsters conducted a ramp show at the mall and told them that their daughter is selected for shoot of a promotion ad of a prominent biscuit company. Initially, they told them to transfer Rs 3.25 lakh refundable caution deposit. Later they collected a Rs 10.87 lakh.

Ashwin had acted in a few Bollywood movies and married Memon. Both resorted to cheating to earn easy money. They used WhatsApp to contact the victims and asked them to transfer to some accounts of traders based in Rajasthan. To make people believe they created a website and maintained it well. Ashwin was arrested by the Mumbai police in similar cases. Four cases are registered against him in Cyberabad. The police seized Rs 15.60 lakh from him, along with four mobile phones and a laptop.