UP Man Held For Conning 904 Families Of Missing Kids; How He Did It

A computer science graduate from Uttar Pradesh was held by Delhi Police for scamming 904 families of missing children under the pretence of having found them. Shyamsundar Chauhan from Mau used police databases to prey on grieving families in Delhi-NCR and told them that he had found their children in a different city, posing as a police official. He then asked the parents to transfer some money so the "police" could go and get the children back. The parents sent the money and eagerly waited to reunite with their children, only to realise they had been scammed. 

North Delhi Deputy Commissioner of Police, Manoj Kumar Meena, said, "In the past few days, we received multiple written and verbal complaints from parents in the North Delhi district that their missing child had been found and they had paid money to police personnel... During our investigation, we found out about a man who would retrieve the numbers of parents of missing children from publicly available databases and call them up." Chauhan was arrested from Mau this week.

Posed As Police

On November 15, the Wazirabad police station in north Delhi received a complaint from a parent to report that his daughter had gone missing. After the information was uploaded to the missing person's portal, the complainants received a call from a man, who claimed that their daughter had been found.

The man, who police said was Chauhan, told the parents they should transfer ₹ 8,000 using a QR code so the police could go retrieve their daughter. A police official said Chauhan would deliberately ask for small amounts, ranging from ₹ 2,000 to ₹ 40,000 so that the families would not get suspicious early on. When the parents never heard from him again, a complaint was filed and the Delhi Police formed a team to catch the conman.

DCP Meena said that the 28-year-old scammer used databases including ZIPNet (Zonal Integrated Police Network) to track his victims. "He had scammed several people this way and, after we arrested him from Mau, we found he had cheated 41 people from North Delhi and other people from Delhi-NCR. He would misuse a parent's love for their child to earn money. He has been arrested and the cases have been solved," he said.