NEW DELHI - The Indian Kerala police on Wednesday arrested a Gulf-returnee for allegedly cheating the Qatar royal family of Rs 5.60 crore by faking e-mail IDs of the royals.
Police said they started investigation into the case with the help of the cyber wing after receiving a complaint from the Qatar Museum Authority on June 13.
Within two days the account in which the amount was deposited was traced and frozen, a senior police officer on the condition of anonymity.
Since then police were on look out for the account holder, Sunil Menon (47) from Thrissur, who went on hiding after his account was frozen. He will be produced in the court on Thursday.
“We were told that by faking e-mail IDs of members of the royal family, he had sent a mail to the museum asking them to deposit $7,60,000 ( Rs 5.60 crore) to a purported account of an American art firm as an advance for drawing a gold-framed portrait of the King,” said Kodungalur police inspector Biju Kumar, who is probing the case.
The museum authorities transferred the money into the account mentioned in the mail.
As the delivery of the portrait was delayed, Qatar authorities reportedly made inquiries with the US firm only to find that they were cheated.
Later Qatar IT authorities tracked the mail and account with the help of the service provider and traced the beneficiary to Kerala.
Police said Menon worked in middle-east countries for many years as an auditor before switching over to online trading of paintings and artefacts.
He returned to India last year after his business failed.
“During questioning, Menon told us he used a website (Emkei.cz) to breach the official site of the royal family and managed their IDs and other details. He also managed details of the US firm to fix the deal,” the officer said.
“We are yet to find out whether more persons were involved in the cheating,” he said.
With the swindled money, he said, Menon purchased an SUV recently and gave Rs 20 lakh as soft loans to his relatives.