‘Uncle’ swindles Pindi people

Suspect offered lucrative income from renting out cars to multinationals

RAWALPINDI:

With the memory of Double Shah still fresh in their minds, the people of Rawalpindi were hit by Raees Mamon, who allegedly ran off with millions of rupees of people duped by offer of easy income.

Mamon, or uncle, as he is popularly called, rented out peoples cars. Though he initially paid them healthy returns, but then reported losses and finally disappeared.

A Rawalpindi police officer said that they had received more than 100 complaints against Mamon. Moreover, a large number of victims in the scam are government employees who will find it hard to prove how did they bought the expensive cars to put up for rentals, a senior police officer, requesting anonymity, told The Express Tribune.

He said that several government officials fell prey to the lucrative offers by Mamon.

Regarding the suspect, he said that the swindler hailed from Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK). A few years ago, the suspect started importing cosmetics and asked his acquaintances to invest in his business.

He initially won the trust of the affectees and accumulated heavy sums of money from them by offering high-returns in his cosmetics import business. The alleged swindler developed the trust of the investors upon him by consistently crediting profits to their accounts.

The coronavirus outbreak opened another window of opportunity for Mamon and convinced the affectees facing losses in the business due to the economic slump.

The alleged fraudster then brought another scheme for the affectees and suggested them to rent out their new vehicles as a company he was working with was ready to pay up to Rs100,000 to the owners.

He conditioned the provision of vehicle’s original documents and biometric verification of the owners for renting out their vehicles.

The suspect paid heavy profits to the owners for three months and many affectees became a source of bringing in more investors. Some well-off people even bought new cars or put their additional cars in the lucrative rental business.

The suspect finally fled with all the money, leaving the investors dazed.

The police official said that several affectees had filed applications in the Airport police station against the swindler.

He added that more than 100 cheques provided to the police as proofs were those with payments of up to Rs4 million to the suspect’s account.

The police learnt that Mamoon had also shown fake losses and gulped millions of rupees of the investors in the cosmetics business too.

The police official said that the department’s high-ups were fully aware of the scam as a large number of victims were high government officials.

However, he added that most of them seek unique help from the police in the case. The affectees want the police to resolve the case without registering a case against the suspect neither they want the swindler to be jailed. When the reason was questioned, the police official told if the fraudster was sent to jail, they would lose all their investments as punishing him would not serve the purpose for them.

The police official claimed that they were close to catching Mamoon and he would be arrested very soon.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 22^nd, 2020.