A man alleged of decamping with ₹2.6 lakh was arrested in Mumbai by cops who laid a trap for him by posing as a girl and flirting on Facebook.
Narrating the incident, VP Road police said that Vijay Chaudhari, the accused ran away with ₹2.6 lakh which his employer had asked him to deposit in a bank.
Chaudhari did not deposit the money. He instead quit his job and never returned.
On learning that Chaudhari had fled with the money, Tejas Sauda, the shop owner, tried to contact him through his mobile phone but in vain.
"After failing to track Chaudhari, the owner registered an FIR against him for criminal breach of trust (IPC sec 408). The CCTV footage of the bank branch revealed that Chaudhari did go there but was not seen depositing the cash, which means he changed his mind at the bank, and then called the owner saying that he was robbed of the cash," said an officer from VP Road police station, Mid-Day reported.
The officer added, "By the time we heard of Chaudhari's involvement in the theft, he had already fled to Nagpur. His phone was switched off and we did not have his address."
During the investigation the cops found that a good share Chaudhari's salary was spent on gadgets and girlfriends and they developed a plan to nab him by posing as a girl on Facebook.
The police opened a Facebook account and sent a request to Chaudhari. After accepting the request, Chaudhari started chatting thinking that the account holder was a woman.
"We opened a Facebook account in the name of a woman and contacted the accused with a friend request," said Milind Kate, police sub-inspector of VP Road police station.
Eventually, the cops asked Chaudhari to meet up at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminal (CST) who immediately agreed.
"When Chaudhari arrived at CST station, we arrested him. We managed to recover Rs. 20,000 from him. He had spent the remaining amount, mostly on dating girls and taking them out to restaurants and on outings," the officer concluded.
