On Sunday, December 3, a pastor from West Bengal’s Darjeeling district was arrested for allegedly duping a woman from Dimapur in Nagaland into buying a ‘mystery box’ for Rs 3.5 crore that would bring her riches. According to Dimapur Police, the accused Reverend Timothy Joshi, pastor of New Life Church Ministry in Darjeeling’s Kantibhita, would dupe unsuspecting Christians into numerous frauds.
Reportedly, the accused told the victim that the fortune box was on sale for Rs. 3.4 crore, but that its real value was assessed to be Rs. 22 crore.
According to the DCP (Crime) and PRO Dimapur police, the victim was introduced to one Manish Awasti, posing as the managing director of RM Trading Company, who promised to buy the “Mystery Box” for Rs.22 crore on the condition that the victim first invest in the box by paying Rs. 4 crore. As a result, the victim sent Rs. 3.5 crore to multiple scammers’ accounts in a series of bank payments between 2019 and 2020.
According to a Nagaland Post report, the victim was invited to Kolkata where she stayed in a five-star Hotel and fraudsters posing as high-profile businessmen with bodyguards came in SUVs to meet her. The scammers and victim got into two cars and drove to a location near the Bangladesh border to retrieve the purported “Mystery Box” and then returned. The car carrying the victim arrived first at the hotel, and while waiting for the car carrying the consignment, accused pastor Timothy arrived and informed the victim that the police had received the information and were pursuing the car to confiscate the “Mystery Box.” He claimed that although he managed to escape and reach the hotel, the driver carrying the mystery box drove away out of fear of the police.
The victim sensed that she had been scammed, and then returned home. When she tried to contact the accused pastor and his accomplices seeking her money back, they stopped taking her calls.
Subsequently, an FIR was filed, and the East Police Station team investigated the matter using digital communication evidence, tracing the accused’s location to Khantibhita (Darjeeling), where he was caught and brought before Dimapur Court.
According to the authorities, the accused Reverend Timothy exploited his position as a reputable Christian pastor to attract unsuspecting followers into several kinds of scams orchestrated by him. The police said that the preliminary investigation revealed that the “Mystery Box” was nothing but an empty box which was made solely to deceive the victim.