Ahmedabad, Oct 22 (PTI) The Gujarat CID-Crime has arrested two persons for running a nationwide racket of creating an artificial shortage of jungle safari permits across multiple states through bulk bookings and then selling them at inflated rates in the black market, officials said on Wednesday.
Following an investigation, the Gandhinagar-based Cyber Centre of Excellence of the CID-Crime arrested the duo, Ajaykumar Chaudhary and Arvind Upadhyay, from Delhi and brought them to Gujarat, said an official release.
It was revealed during the probe that using fake ID proofs, the duo had bulk-booked online permits of the Gir Jungle Safari in Gujarat, Ranthambore National Park in Rajasthan, Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra, Jim Corbett National Park in Uttarakhand, Kaziranga in Assam and Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh, it said.
As part of the racket, Chaudhary and Upadhyay, both natives of Bihar, used to book online safari permits of these national parks/tiger reserves in bulk using fake identities, which would eventually create shortage and deprive genuine tourists of permits, explained the CID-Crime.
After purchasing permits in bulk from official websites using fake identities, the duo used to sell them to travel agents who in turn would offer these confirmed bookings to tourists looking for jungle safaris, forcing them to buy them at much higher prices, said the release.
Chaudhary and Upadhyay had created a fake website, which resembled the official one’s name, to take bookings from unsuspecting visitors and then selling the illegally acquired permits to them at higher rates, according to investigators.
So far, the duo had sold nearly 12,000 permits of Gir Jungle Safari alone and nearly 8,600 emails confirming payments were also recovered from their computer, said the release. PTI PJT RSY
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