Father, son dupe Delhi man, sell copper plate for Rs 1.43 Cr claiming NASA wants it

New Delhi: A father-son duo was arrested by the Delhi Police Crime Branch for allegedly cheating a man of Rs. 1.43 crore on the pretext of selling and testing Rice Puller, apparently used by research agencies, police said Tuesday.

In May, one Narender, a businessman engaged in garment exports, approached the Crime Branch that he was cheated by Virender Mohan Brar, Baba Brar and others, they said.

The accused claimed to be testing a Rice Puller aka RP, a brass plate apparently charged by thunderbolt and required by NASA/DRDO for space research.

The complainant alleged that few years ago, he came in contact with one person who told him about huge profits in dealing with Rice Puller, police said.

The victim met Virender Mohan Brar, managing director of a company, who told him that his company could arrange the sale of RP to NASA at a price of around Rs 37,500 crore after testing its genuineness, which would be done by scientists of the DRDO and some chemicals would be imported for it, police said.

Virender Mohan Brar also told the complainant that they would pay Rs 10 crore immediately on the spot as token money if the test was found "OK", they said.

The victim entered into an MoU with Virender Mohan Brar and paid Rs 87.2 lakh for arranging special anti-radiation suits to be worn by scientists during testing, fees of scientist, for obtaining chemicals required for testing etc, police said.

The testing of the RP was scheduled in Hapur but could not happen as the accused made an excuse that the place was not conducive and after that the said testing was delayed by them on one or another pretext, they said.

At the same time, the other associates of the alleged seller of RP mounted pressure on the victim for finalisation of the deal or they would sell it to some other person and took him to another company and convinced him that he would not be cheated this time, police said.

After that the complainant again entered into an MoU with the company and paid Rs 51.1 lakh on different occasions for the testing of RP, which was scheduled in Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh, they said.

Later, the victim came to know that the said scientist was working with the accused for Rs 20,000, police said.

Subsequently, Virender Mohan Brar and his son Nitin Mohan alias Baba Brar, were arrested, they said.

During investigation, the RP copper plate, anti-radiation scientist suits of NASA and anti-radiation chemical stickers were seized from their possession.

"Rice Puller is a non-existent thing, but cheats take a copper plate or utensil and coat it with liquid magnet and then fill some boiled rice with small iron wires and befool the victim by pulling the rice grain towards the magnet coated copper article," said Alok Kumar, joint commissioner of police (Crime).