NSE's Himalayan Yogi To Fake AIIMS Doctor: Bizarre Scams That Could Have Happened Only In India

For many years now, we all have witnessed huge political and financial scams/frauds in our country involving money which amounts to multi-million dollars. And these are just the ones which have been exposed!

Here's a list of 5 bizarre scams that could have happened only in India. Take a look.

1) Chitra Ramakrishna and Himalayan Yogi

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) questioned ex-NSE group operating officer (GOO), Anand Subramanian, in connection with the ex-NSE MD Chitra Ramkrishna-Himalayan Yogi case.

In its 190-page report, SEBI claimed that Chitra Ramkrishna and Subramanian ran a money-making scheme during their stint at NSE, alleging that Anand Subramanian's appointment as NSE's CSO was influenced by emails from a 'yogi' dwelling in the Himalayan region in 2013, along with a compensation of Rs 1.3 crores.

SEBI has highlighted Subramanian's continued elevations till he became GOO sharing how his rise was accompanied by an 'arbitrary and disproportionate' increase in his pay package. He was also exempted from working five days a week, and only asked to come for three days. After SEBI received complaints on Subramanian's arbitrary elevation, it initiated a probe into it.

Reuters

"It was alleged that unknown officials of NSE, Mumbai had provided unfair access to said company using the co-location facility during the period 2010-2012 that enabled it to login first to the exchange server of the stock exchange that helped to get the data before any other broker in the market," the CBI has alleged in the FIR.

On February 17, the I-T department raided Chitra Ramkrishna and Anand Subramanian, after the SEBI report revealed that she had been guided by a mysterious spiritual guru for the last 20 years in key decisions on NSE. The raid comes days after SEBI penalised her for leaking sensitive information on NSE¡¯s five-year financial projections.

2) 1987 Fake IT raid (heist) at Opera House

On March 19, 1987, responding to an advertisement for ¡°dynamic graduates for Intelligence Officers Post¡±, over 30 people turned up at Mumbai¡¯s Taj Intercontinental Hotel for an interview with ¡®CBI officer Mohan Singh¡¯. Once the ¡®interview¡¯ ended, the shortlisted 26 were taken for a ¡°mock CBI raid¡± to a jewellery shop in south Mumbai, after which Singh decamped with the ¡®confiscated¡¯ jewellery, leaving the ¡®applicants¡¯ behind. The Opera House heist of 1987, unsolved till date, stunned the country and even inspired the Bollywood thriller Special 26.

opera-house

Police investigation revealed that he booked room number 415 at the Taj on 17 March and he put an advertisement in the newspaper. Police found that Singh reached the hotel after leaving the jewellery shop and hired a taxi from there. The taxi dropped him at Vile Parle where he hired an auto. He was last seen there and there was no trail.

The police put out a nationwide alert. They sent a team to Kerala as his hotel record showed that he hailed from Trivandrum. But, to no avail. They also sent a team to Dubai but no headway reported. The heist amount ranged from ?30 lakh to ?35 lakh (equivalent to ?3.7 crore in 2020).

3) Mumbai IRS scam

Thirty years later, in another similar case, the IRS scam or the ¡®Mira Road call centre scam¡¯ of October 2016, some of those out on bail sing a similar tune: of being part of an operation in which they were convinced that they were legally collecting money on behalf of the US¡¯s Internal Revenue Service (IRS) when, in fact, they were part of an international heist, a scam that topped the American tax agency¡¯s ¡®Dirty Dozen¡¯ list for 2016.

According to the US Justice Department, which has charged 61 people so far, the scam trapped thousands of American citizens, who ended up losing over $300 million (over Rs 2,040 crore) to people who posed as IRS officers. Many of these calls were traced back to India, to seven call centres in the Mumbai suburb of Mira Road, where over 700 people would make thousands of calls a day to American taxpayers and allegedly trick them into transferring money. Five of these call centres operated out of one swanky glass structure at Kashimira in Mira Road.

Unsplash/Representational image

The operation was simple: Americans would get voice mails on their phones in the name of the IRS, asking them to call on a particular number ¡ª the call centre¡¯s ¡ª if they did not want to be arrested. When they dialled the number ¡ª a device, Magic Jack, ensured that a US location showed up on their phones ¡ª the call centre operators would pose as IRS agents, accuse the victims of failing to pay their taxes, threaten them with jail time if they didn¡¯t pay up and ask them to buy iTunes gift cards or other retailers and transfer money immediately.

4) Fake AIIMS doctor

For nearly five months, 19-year-old Adnan Khurram pretended to be a doctor from All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and was seen enthusiastically participating in social events and protests, including the one organised by the resident doctors¡¯ association against the National Medical Commission (NMC) bill.

He also allegedly used his fake RDA credentials to meet VIPs. It was his social participation in so many activities that raised suspicion among other doctors.

¡°We were surprised that he could make it to all the events at AIIMS and even those organised by other medical organisations. He claimed to be a junior resident, who usually end up with 18-20 hour shifts. He used to hang out near the coffee shop or the doctors¡¯ hostel every evening. We started wondering how he had so much time,¡± said Dr Harjit Singh Bhatti, president of the resident doctors¡¯ association (RDA) at AIIMS.

fake-doctor

When Khurram did not turn up at the administrative building after being repeatedly summoned, the security officer at AIIMS was asked to keep an eye out for him. Security officers caught him when he came for the marathon on Sunday and reported him to the police.

Doctors said that such cases of impersonation were a serious security breach. There were speculations if did this to gain favour with other staff members for the treatment of family members or people who paid him, but nothing got proved.

5) Rice puller scam

In 2018, a father-son duo was arrested by the Delhi Police Crime Branch for allegedly cheating a man of Rs 1.43 crore on the pretext of selling and testing Rice Puller, apparently used by research agencies.

In May, one Narender, a businessman engaged in garment exports, approached the Crime Branch that he was cheated by Virender Mohan Brar, Baba Brar, and others, they said. The accused claimed to be testing a Rice Puller aka RP', a brass plate apparently charged by a thunderbolt and required by NASA/DRDO for space research.

Delhi Police/ Twitter

The complainant alleged that a few years ago, he came in contact with one person who told him about huge profits in dealing with Rice Puller, police said. During the investigation, the RP's copper plate, anti-radiation scientist suits of NASA and anti-radiation chemical stickers were seized from their possession.

"Rice Puller is a non-existent thing, but cheats take a copper plate or utensil and coat it with liquid magnet and then fill some boiled rice with small iron wires and befool the victim by pulling the rice grain towards the magnet coated copper article," said Alok Kumar, joint commissioner of police.

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