2 held for duping French woman

Two men, who allegedly used to extort money from foreigners in the name of customs after inducing them into fake jewellery export business, has been arrested, police said today.
According to the police, Rishi Raj and Praveen Kumar were arrested after they received a complaint on September 3 from one Melanie Panaget, a French national, against them.
"As per her complaint, Panaget arrived in Dharamsala in June. She met one Surya. After some days, Surya introduced her to Rish Raj who offered her to get into the business of export of jewellery.
He told her that she has to book a parcel containing jewellery in her name from a post office in India and when she gets it released in Paris, she would get 50 per cent of the cost of the jewellery from them," said a police official.

When she agreed to book a parcel containing jewellery worth 10,000 Euro, they took her to Karol Bagh and prepared a parcel containing artificial jewellery. The parcel was booked through Praveen who charged Rs 3,000, police said.
"Following this, she got a call from a customs officer who asked her to produce the bill of the jewellery. She went to PC Jewellers and swiped her card to buy gold coins in order to obtain a bill. The coins were kept by Rishi Raj," the official said.

The next day Rishi Raj told her that he has exchanged some gold from PC Jewellers while the rest of it was sold by Surya in Chawri Bazar and all the money has been spent.

Acting on the complaint, police arrested Rishi Raj and learnt that the call Panaget received in the name of the customs official was actually made by him.
At his instance, Praveen Kumar, who runs a courier shop in Karol Bagh, was also arrested. He had taken Rs 3000 for the courier which was later returned to Rishi Raj as per plan, police said.
Their third accomplice Surya, alias Vinay, is absconding and efforts are on to apprehend him.