In a character reminiscent of actor Akshay Kumar’s audacious portrayal in the film Special 26, two siblings from Odisha have masterminded plots duping 300 government officials by posing as officers of the Enforcement Directorate.
The arrest of Tarinisen Mohapatra, 30, and Brahmashankar Mohapatra, 27, from Dhenkanal district by the State Police’s Special Task Force (STF) revealed the cunning tactics deployed by the duo to trap unsuspecting officers.
The STF probe revealed that both brothers were maintaining a luxurious life but had no constant source of income. They had resorted to borrowings from people in their locality in order to persist with the same lifestyle. When creditors demanded their money back, both of them escaped to Jharkhand where they worked in a non-government organisation.
Became imposters
“When they ran out of money, both Tarinisen and Brahmashankar, hatched a plan to cheat the vulnerable government officials by impersonating themselves as additional director of ED, Bhubaneswar,” said the STF.
According to the STF, the two brothers chose to be ED officials because the investigating agency had been in news for widespread raids in the country. The news outlets too covered activities of the Central agency at great length.
The conmen studied all the activities of the ED so that they could imitate it well to scare and extort government officials, said the STF officials. Their knowledge in computer operations came in handy for creating fake documents.
The two brothers used separate SIM cards from Odisha and Jharkhand. After collecting mobile phone numbers of officials from the directory, they used to make Whatsapp calls to these officials. “They also saved their number in Truecaller application. They changed their name to ‘Sanjay Mishra ED’ as their profile name,” said STF officials.
State government officials who have been investigated by anti-corruption bureaus were targeted by the two men. “They would generally inform government officials that a complaint had been lodged against them, originating from the vigilance department, regarding a corruption case. They would claim that the ED was ready to launch an investigation and conduct raids against them,” the agency said about their modus operandi.
The imposters would demand money to halt the fabricated investigation. Initial findings reveal that the two brothers contacted approximately 340 government officials and that they managed to extort money in numerous instances.
To date, the STF has tracked transactions worth more than ₹16 lakh. An STF statement indicated that ongoing investigations would also determine if they were involved in similar impersonation activities in Jharkhand.
A laptop, five mobile handset, several bank passbooks and cheque books, fake Identity cards and 17 fake ATM-cum-debit cards have been recovered from their possession.
