Vastrapur police arrested a man-woman duo, Jhalak Mukesh Upadhyay from Bhuj and Karan Jayesh Joshi from near Sola Civil, for duping multiple shopkeepers by faking online UPI payments.
The accused posed as customers in clothing stores around Mansi Circle and scanned UPI QR codes to show fake payment confirmations, leaving shopkeepers unpaid. On May 23, they tricked Mahipal Singh Rajpurohit, a garment shop owner, out of Rs 11,394. After noticing no payment was credited, Mahipal alerted fellow traders via a WhatsApp group. Another victim, Ilyas Majothi, confirmed a similar fraud by the same duo.
Using CCTV footage, traders and police set a trap. When the duo returned to a shop under the pretense of exchanging clothes, police arrested them on the spot.
The accused confessed to cheating at least four shopkeepers, including Shailesh Chauhan and Urvashi Naniwal, with a total scam amount of Rs 55,695. PSI R L Patel revealed that Jhalak holds an MBA while Karan studied hotel management. They met when Jhalak lived in Ahmedabad. Authorities are investigating whether the pair ran similar scams elsewhere.
