Student,18, arrested for duping people of over Rs 2 lakh on pretext of providing Remdesivir

An 18-year-old college student was arrested from Madhya Pradesh for allegedly cheating people on the pretext of providing them Remdesivir injections, Delhi police said on Friday.

The accused, a resident of Seoni in Madhya Pradesh, is pursuing her graduation in Psychology from a distance university in Delhi, they said, adding she duped 11 persons in Delhi and the National Capital Region of Rs 2,25,000.

The woman was arrested on Monday from her house in Seoni.

On May 1, a case was registered at Defence Colony police station in south Delhi on the complaint of one Ankit Kumar, who contacted someone following the leads available online regarding the Remdesivir injections, police said.

Kumar was promised the delivery of five injections for Rs 32,400 so he transferred the amount to their bank but never received them, the complaint said. Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) Atul Kumar Thakur said the bank account details were used to trace the accused and she was held.

Two mobile phones, bank passbooks and four ATM cards were recovered from her possession and her bank account with a total balance of Rs 1,33,000 was seized, the officer said.

The accused told police that she made money by promoting Instagram pages. Her father runs a medical store and her uncle had suffered from Covid. She saw an opportunity to earn money during this emergency situation and used social media to cheat people who were in an urgent need of COVID-19 medicines,” the officer said.

From April 29 to May 1, she got many WhatsApp messages on her mobile phone number regarding the injection.

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