Thiruvananthapuram: City police are in search of a man who has defrauded several people using fake currency notes. The suspect, whose identity remains unknown, employed a tactic of hailing taxis and settling the fares with counterfeit Rs 500 bills. In certain instances, he requested to make payments via Google Pay but instead provided the drivers with the counterfeit notes.
Furthermore, the man also used fake currency to pay for accommodation at hotels. The unsuspecting victims only discovered the deception when they tried to use the notes at petrol pumps and financial institutions.
Kazhakkoottam and Thampanoor police have registered two cases, and they anticipate the number of cases will increase in the coming days. The victims described the man as someone who is fluent in English, Malayalam, and Tamil.
The accused had hired a taxi from Tirunelveli to reach the city on Tuesday, and the taxi driver, Velayudham S, 45, was paid with fake notes. The accused also requested the driver to transfer Rs 10,000 to a number; in return, he gave him currency notes which also turned out to be fake. Police later discovered that the amount was transferred to the number of a staff member of a hotel, where the accused had stayed, He later collected the money from the staff member.
Other staff members in two hotels were also tricked in a similar manner. The accused, on Wednesday, contacted a taxi driver in Kanyakumari and asked him to come to Thiruvananthapuram to pick im and later left for Kanyakumari that night. The second taxi driver was also cheated in the same manner
Police have begun a probe after registering cases under sections of the BNS 179 for using counterfeit currency as genuine, 180 for possessing counterfeit currencies, 318 (4) for cheating, and 303 (2) for theft. “The identity proofs given by him at the hotels were found to be fake, but we have got a clear image of him from CCTV visuals. It has been shared across all mediums, and alerts have been passed to taxi drivers and other police stations. From the victims’ accounts, it is still unclear whether he was a Malayali. His mobile number remains switched off, and the SIM card was procured using a fake identity card,” said police.
