The Mira Bhayandar-Vasai Virar police in Maharashtra`s Thane district have arrested five persons who cheated people on the pretext of arranging loans for them, and claimed to have detected three more crimes committed by the gang, an official told news PTI on Wednesday.

The gang has conned people in Maharashtra, Telangana and Gujarat in the past two years, he said.

Jayant Bajbale, deputy commissioner of police, Zone I – Mira Road, told PTI that the gang approached a shopkeeper on April 3 and offered to arrange a business loan for him. 

They took a cancelled cheque from him but tampered with it to siphon off Rs 1.18 lakh from his bank account, he said.

The police found that the accused frequently changed mobile phones and SIM cards. They then tracked them to Ahmednagar on June 14 where the gang was trying to con another shopkeeper. The police laid a trap and arrested the five on June 18. The accused hail from West Bengal and Jharkhand, Bajbale told PTI.

The official said that the gang has cheated people in Maharashtra, Telangana and Gujarat over the past two years.

Their arrest also helped the police detect three similar crimes committed by the gang under the jurisdiction of Navghar and Valiv police stations in Mira Bhayandar-Vasai Virar area and Ramdaspeth police station in Akola, the official told PTI.

Meanwhile, a 31-year-old man on the run for allegedly raping a 15-year-old girl in 2019 was arrested after four years from Bhayandar in Thane district of Maharashtra, police told PTI on Wednesday.

A case of rape and kidnapping was registered against the man on March 4, 2019, days after the teenage girl went missing from her home in Mira Road locality. Police also added sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and the Child Marriage Restraint Act as the accused married the victim, reported PTI.

The girl was later traced by the police and reunited with her parents but the accused went absconding, a police official told PTI.

Police received a tip-off that the accused had been living in Bhayandar and arrested him two days back, he said.

(With inputs from PTI)

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