The Surat Crime Branch on September 19 arrested 28-year-old Bihar native Himanshukumar Rameshbhai Rai for defrauding Surtis to the tune of ₹12.75 lakh by promising them jobs at the Delhi airport.

Officials say that the closest that Rai has come to having any connections with the Delhi airport is when he worked as a driver for an actual Customs officer there. 

The conman has been perpetrating his fraud in Surat’s Kamrej, Delhi Gate and Sagrampura areas, where he has been active for about 18 months. 

Prior to Surat, Rai was based in Goa, where he pulled a similar stunt — complete with uniform, an Army number plate and bogus papers that identified him as a senior inspector.  

According to persons involved in the arrest, the sub-inspector of the Crime Branch’s General Squad intercepted an Ertiga car with an army number plate from Varachha Bombay Market. The person inside, later identified as Rai, claimed to be a Customs official.

He had a uniform bearing the insignia of the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBIC) and a bogus ID card of a senior inspector. The Crime Branch team also found an air gun, a driving order from the Central Board of Indirect Taxis and Customs and two mobile phones on Rai. 

The accused has now been handed over to the Athwalines police. 

The primary investigation has revealed that Rai had dreamt of joining the Army as a child. However, after two years at a college in New Delhi, he moved to Vadodara, where he pursued a Diploma in Aviation. Unable to find a job at the airport, Rai began working as a driver at a private firm. Chauffeuring the customs official allowed him to study his fare’s mannerisms in great detail. So, when the driving firm shut, Rai used what he had learnt from the official to pose as one himself. To that end, he created bogus CBIC certificates from Delhi and Goa, a bogus ID card and number plate, and gained access to a uniform, all of which he then used to defraud desperate jobseekers.