Man sells Covid negative certificate, held: Chennai police – Times of India

CHENNAI: The city police on Wednesday arrested a Triplicane resident who sold fake Covid negative certificates atRs500 each to those flying abroad and began efforts to nab his Dubai-based friend who helped prepare the certificates. While S Irfan Khan, 29, was picked up from a lodge in Triplicane and a hunt has been launched for Praveen who is in Dubai. The certificates were sent on WhatsApp after payment was made on Gpay, police said.
The fraud came to light when Harish Parvesh, who runs KHM Medical Centre in Mannady, came across a message on WhatsApp which used his lab’s name and promised a Covid negative certificate within 30 minutes of the passport copy being sent on WhatsApp.
Suspecting that some of his staff were behind the fraud, he sent a friend’s passport copy to the phone number given in the message and paidRs500 on GPay. To his shock, he received a Covid negative certificate via WhatsApp in the promised 30 minutes. Realising that his lab was in trouble, he lodged a complaint at the North Beach police station.
A team headed by inspector Rajkumar launched a hunt and secured Irfan Khan from a lodge. Interrogations revealed that Irfan Khan ran the racket from an office in the North Beach area. Khan got the details from the flyers and sent it to Praveen who used the name of Pravesh’s lab in Mannady and prepared the certificates, said an officer.
“Praveen would replace the names and addresses of the ‘buyers’, while all the certificates had the same sign and seal,” he said. Khan and his associate over the past six months issued about 70 ‘Covid negative’ certificates, mostly to ‘Kuruvis’ (couriers) who travelled abroad frequently.
Police said the seeds of the racket were sown in Irfan’s mind when he made a trip to the United Arab Emirates (Dubai) and got acquainted with Praveen who prepared a Covid negative certificate and helped him travel to Chennai. Soon, the game flourished and they shared in the profits, the officer said. They were in the process of making 50 more certificates when Irfan was nabbed, he added.