The confiscated scooty at Capital police station in Bhubaneswar on Monday. Picture by Badrika Nath Das

Bhubaneswar, Sept. 15: Police arrested a 35-year-old man today for posing as a CBI officer and cheating people.

The BCom graduate had allegedly duped several people in the city of lakhs of rupees.

The police have also seized a fake CBI identity card from the accused, Satyajit Panda, alias Rajat Kumar Panda, who used to pose as an inspector of the central investigation agency.

The matter came to light after the accused offered a project of World Health Organisation to a health club in Bapuji Nagar. “He introduced himself as a CBI official and offered the club a project for collecting blood samples of residents of Cuttack and Bhubaneswar. Panda also told club officials that the report would be used in Australia and took Rs 45,000 as security money for the project from the club,” said deputy commissioner of police Satyabrata Bhoi.

Later, owner of the fitness club Abinash Sahani lodged a complaint with Capital police station and the cops nabbed Panda today near Kalpana Square. The police have also seized a scooty with CBI written on it.

Apart from this, the police have seized a T-shirt bearing the logo of Odisha Police from the accused.Further investigation revealed that Panda had taken Rs 45,000 from a person in Badagada promising to set up a mobile tower on his land. Panda managed to convince the person by posing as a CBI officer.

The police said Panda had also duped a woman in Khandagiri of Rs 40,000 on the pretext of giving her a job in the high court. Panda had also been arrested in a cheating case last year by Laxmisagar police, the cops added.

“He was educated and could convince his targets easily. Besides, he is an expert in changing his name and address. The accused was staying in the Tankapani Road area and had identified himself as a security supervisor,” said a police official. Further investigation is on to find his antecedents. Panda, a native of Tihidi in Bhadrak district, had for worked in Calcutta for a while after his graduation.

In August, Badagada police had arrested Adarsh Kumar Parida, 24, on the charge of posing as a police sub-inspector and extorting money from private buses at Kalpana Square.