The Juhu Police on Saturday arrested four men for allegedly duping a housekeeping staff member of Bollywood filmmaker Rohit Shetty in a fake lottery scam. The accused had been absconding for nine months.
The suspects — Prakash Vyankatesh Naidu, Navnath Somnath Sathe, Rameshwar Rajendra Prasad Chaudhary, and Raju Rajesh Maurya — were arrested after police received a tip-off about their arrival in Vile Parle, possibly to commit another fraud. A team led by API Ranjit Chavan laid a trap and apprehended them.
The victim, Dharmjit Ramanresh Singh (28), a resident of Varanasi and currently living in Goregaon, works as a housekeeping employee at Rohit Shetty’s residence. On April 22, 2024, at the Vile Parle railway station skywalk, he was approached by one of the accused claiming to possess a guaranteed-winning lottery ticket worth Rs25 lakh.
Using a typical con tactic, another member posed as a buyer who didn’t have cash, while a third encouraged Singh to purchase the ticket. Falling for the scam, Singh transferred Rs25,000 to an account belonging to Dinesh Kumar Shankar Jaiswal.
When he realized the lottery was fake, he filed a complaint at Juhu police station. The investigation revealed the gang was involved in similar scams across Mumbai. All four accused were booked, and a case was registered. They were produced in Andheri local court for judicial proceedings.
