Nearly 200 people cheated in ‘Anti Iron, rice puller’ metal scam, suspended railway cop arrested

Police said that the accused cheated gullible people, promising them large returns on investment in ‘rice puller’ metal by saying that it had rare powers and was used by NASA

The Pimpri Chinchwad police have arrested a suspended sub-inspector from the railway police for allegedly cheating around 200 people in Maharashtra on the pretext of investing in a ‘rice puller metal’, also referred to as ‘copper iridium’, that allegedly has rare powers and is used by aerospace organisations, including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), to make space equipment. The suspended railway police official, who was arrested last week, was the prime suspect in the case and had been giving police the slip for a while.

The Hinjewadi police under the Pimpri Chinchwad jurisdiction were probing a case registered in the first week of June in which two brothers from Sus Gaon area of Pune were cheated to the tune of Rs 49 lakh by a group of men and women, from June 2019 to May this year. The suspects allegedly took money from the brothers in multiple installments, luring them of very high returns on investments.

The two brothers, who are in their late 40s, were allegedly promised returns to the tune of Rs 500 crore on a sale of Rs 5,000 crore of a ‘valuable rice puller or RP metal to NASA’. The suspects, whom the two brothers had met through other acquaintances, told them that they had found the source of a very rare and extremely valuable metal alloy that the NASA required, police said. The suspects then allegedly took money from the brothers on the pretext of investment required for the procurement of this metal.

To convince the brothers, the suspects used forged documents, letters and certificates from the government of National Capital Territory of Delhi, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), with fake letterheads and seals of these bodies.

When the brothers realised they had been cheated, they approached the police and a probe was launched.

In the initial part of the probe, the Hinjewadi police arrested Sonali Jadhav, Pooja Garud, Sangeeta Nagarkar, Mehul Gandhi and Satish Mukerkar. However, they were unable to trace the prime suspect and alleged mastermind of the racket, Robert Ubaldo Rosario (55), a resident of Khadki. Probe revealed that Rosario, a suspended sub-inspector from the Government Railway Police (GRP) of Maharashtra, had been changing his cell numbers and locations to evade arrest. On August 12, the police finally zeroed in on Rosario and he was placed under arrest from Khadki when he was visiting his home. The details of the arrest were released late on Monday after completion of the initial probe.

“Rosario was suspended from service in the railway police over 10 years ago after multiple cases of cheating were registered against him. Our preliminary probe suggests he has cheated around 200 people from Maharashtra to a total amount running into several crores of rupees on the pretext of sale of valuable rice puller metal, saying that it is required by NASA,” Senior Inspector Vivek Muglikar, in charge of Hinjewadi police station, said.