Man dupes ‘customer’ who responded to fake portal, held

The victim Karthikeyan (45), a private firm employee, wanted to shift goods from the office and approached a transporter via the IndiaMART website.

While Karthikeyan deposited Rs 30,000 as demanded to hire two trucks, he could not reach the transporter since then.

The victim realised that he was cheated and approached the cyber cell of the Adyar police district. A case was registered and the accused E Jeyakumar (48) of Kosapet was arrested nearly after two months. Investigation revealed that Jeyakumar used to run a furniture shop in Triplicane and suffered loss before resorting to cheating through the online portal. He registered as a goods transporter on IndiaMART and asked those who approached him to deposit the advance sum in a bank account and blocked their phone numbers. While a mobile phone was seized from Jeyakumar, further investigation is on to ascertain how many people he has cheated in a similar manner.