Man held for cheating: A casting director was arrested for allegedly duping women by offering them roles in non-existing Bollywood movies on social media, Delhi Police said on Saturday (July 22).
The accused was identified as Sunny Kumar Verma who hails from Uttarakhand’s Haridwar.
The matter came to light when a woman, on May 12, alleged in her complaint that she was cheated over Rs 20,000 by a casting manager on Instagram.
According to her complaint, the woman had responded to a post on Instagram by a casting director who elicited pitches from female leads for audition in Hindi films.
She shared her photos and details with the person and received an email in return in which terms and conditions for the movie ‘Elaan 2’ were mentioned, a senior police official said.
She was asked in the mail to deposit a "refundable security" of Rs 13,500 in the company's account within four hours to lock her role, which she did.
On April 29, the man again texted her on WhatsApp regarding a role in another film ‘Jee le Zarra’ and sought Rs 9,800 as security deposit, the police said.
The woman again complied, however, after the transaction, she did not receive any confirmation mail this time.
Accused blocks woman on social media
The man blocked her on WhatsApp and Instagram on May 10, the police said.
The police took up the investigation and traced the mobile number used to send messages to the woman to one Sunny Kumar Verma.
They also found that the bank account in which the money was transferred was registered in the name of one of his family members, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Rohini) Guriqbal Singh Sidhu said.
Following his arrest, Verma revealed that he had studied event management and was running an event management company IMG venture till 2020 from Kalka in Panchkula.
He claimed to have organised various events which were attended by several Bollywood celebrities, the DCP said.
Verma posted several pictures of him with celebrities on his Instagram account and gained a decent following. He had 62,000 followers on the Facebook-owned app at the time of his arrest.
However, his company suffered huge losses during the COVID pandemic and in order to maintain his lavish lifestyle, he began luring young women for roles in Bollywood movies, which were never shot, the police said.
Police found that hundreds of women had responded with their portfolios to his Instagram story for auditions.
He was found to have taken money from several of them as "security deposit" and spent it on his personal expenses, police said.
(With PTI inputs)
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