The Bidhannagar East police have nabbed one person impersonating as an Indian Police Service officer who made friends on social media sites and pushed sale of sundry items to those who were taken in by his fake uniform.

The scale of the operation run by Sk Sabbir Khan, who posed as Aneesh Sarkar, a deputy commissioner of police under Bidhannagar police commissionerate, is being probed.

Investigating into the case, cops uncovered Khan had over 100 SIM cards linked to his phones.

Hs modus operandi, according to the cops, was a fake Facebook profile of Aneesh Satkar.

Days after a user added him as a "friend" he would message them about a friend or relative of his who had been transferred out of Kolkata, urgently wanting to dispose of furniture, electronics and other household items.

"He would send them photographs of these items. Like all cyber fraud cases the transactions took place online. If someone asked to see the goods, he would either talk them out of it or block and move to a new target," said an officer in the Bidhannagar East police station.

The cops are looking for Khan's associates who helped him run the operation and recover the amount he had swindled. The investigators have not revealed the exact amount and only said it ran into crores.