- Tuesday, March 04, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
An Indian-origin man from Italy was recently arrested for allegedly posing as the vice president of the South Asian country to fool senior government officials and bureaucrats on WhatsApp.
The 22-year-old Gagandeep Singh from Offanengo in the southern European nation was arrested at Delhi airport last week after a thorough probe which included human and technical surveillance and analysis, according to the police.
Singh, who has been living in Italy since 2007, made a fake WhatsApp account in the name of vice president Jagdeep Dhankhar with the latter’s photograph, said a top police officer.
The police added that Singh came up with the impersonation scheme after watching a number of YouTube videos.
He reportedly set up the fake account from Italy with the help of an aide in India, who sent him the one-time password required to complete the process. The aide, Ashwani Kumar, a resident of the northern Indian state of Punjab, was also arrested.
The police added that Singh gathered the contact details of senior bureaucrats from the internet and sought favours from them through messages.
Delhi Police filed a complaint in the case after they were alerted about a WhatsApp scam by senior government officials last October.
After Singh’s matter came to the fore, the police gathered the profile’s details from WhatsApp. The sender’s IP address was traced back to Italy and the sleuths looked into all technical aspects and carried out raids.
The vice president’s office was oblivious to the entire episode meanwhile. Dhankhar has been serving as the vice president since August last year.
Singh reportedly wanted favours from senior government officials to buy a petrol pump in India, one media report in India said, citing police sources.
