The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Odisha police arrested a Mumbai-based fraudster for deceiving more than Rs one crore from 200 Muslim devotees of the state while conning them to take on a pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

The EOW nabbed the accused identified as Nabeel Abdul Mubin Shaikh from Mumbai September 27 and brought the accused under transit remand on Monday. He was produced before the designated Odisha Protection of Interests of Depositors (OPID) Court, which remanded him to judicial custody, it said on Monday. The case was registered on the written report of Mir Khursid of Kazimahala of Dhamnagar in Bhadrak district of Odisha against the proprietors of a travel agency, M/s AL-Adam Tour and Travel. The accused and his family members ran a travel agency and collected Rs 1.2 crore from as many as 189 Muslim devotees during the period from 2019-23, to arrange their pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia on the eve of Umrah. But, the accused proprietors neither took the prospective pilgrims on pilgrimage nor refunded the amount collected from them, EOW said. During an investigation from 2019 to 2023, it was found that the accused were proprietors of M/s Al-Adam Tour & Travel.

The agency, operated by the accused, floated advertisements on social media apart from distributing leaflets containing the lucrative packages, contact details etc whereby they induced the Muslim devotees to avail the opportunity under two of their tour packages of Rs 45,786 and Rs 50,786 per individual pilgrim to go on Umrah pilgrimage to Arab countries like Mecca-Medina. The unsuspecting pilgrims were assured of cheap, secure and safe pilgrimage. Even prior to that, the agency had taken the devotees on a pilgrimage which made the devotees repose their faith in the agency and avail the opportunity so offered in the tour packages.

Devotees from Bhadrak, Balasore, Baripada and other parts of Odisha, deposited their respective amounts in the given accounts in the advertisements through bank transfers, apart from paying in UPI and even by cash under money receipts given by the accused proprietors. The arrested accused and his mother are the authorized signatories of the accounts in which the pilgrims’ money has been deposited.

The collection by the owners of the travel agency continued till June 2023 after which the proprietors switched off their mobile phones and remained disconnected from the depositors. However, some of them were given the cheques by the accused proprietors. Later the cheques were dishonored by the concerned bank, EOW added.