Hyderabad: Actress Duped of Rs 50,500, Probe Underway

 Hyderabad: A 24-year-old actress and model was duped by the fraudsters who posed themselves as producer and resource persons for the CINTA (Cine and TV Artistes Association). The scammers cheated her of Rs 50,500, promising to provide the latter the CINTA membership card.

According to Panjagutta police, victim Mahima Gaur, a resident of Kundanbagh, in her complaint, stated that a man named Ranjan Shahi called her up on December 6 over phone and introduced himself as film producer.

After some time, Shahi’s associate Anita called up Mahima introducing herself as HR director from CINTA. Anita assured Mahima that she would be eligible to act in movies suppose she had CINTA membership card. “The scammers collected Rs 50.500 from Mahima but she was not provided the membership card,” police said.

“Mahima who was desperate to work movies, transferred the money to the fraudsters in three installments,” police sources said.

The victim grew suspicious when Anita and her associate Ranjan Shahi were not responding to her call, police said.

Upon realizing that she had been cheated, she immediately dialed cyber helpline 1930.

The police were able to retrieve Rs 20,200 out of Rs 50,500 from the fraudsters’ bank account. “The case is under investigation. Our IT team has been making efforts to identify the servers and the mobile numbers used by the fraudsters and their bank account numbers. The accused will be arrested soon,” said a police officer.