Orissa: 27-year-old man arrested for posing as Oxford professor

A 27-year-old Avinash Patra who posed as an India-born, award-winning British writer was arrested for duping pharmacy owner Umesh Agarwal of Rs 70 lakh in Odisha's Nuapara district.

The police arrested Patra who is a two-bit fraudster from Odisha's coastal Kendrapara district.

Patra took the money from the businessman between 2009 and 2013, promising him of big returns from Microsoft in the UK. When the businessman asked for his money, Patra gave him a letter with forged signatures of a senior IAS officer in September 2016. The letter read that Agarwal will get Rs 2.19 crore from JP Morgan Chase Bank of UK.

The forgery came to the notice of IAS officer Bishnupada Sethi who then registered a complaint against Patra for forging his initials. He was later taken into custody in Bhubaneswar. A letter pad and rubber stamp were also seized from him.

It is learnt that Patra had had faked an invitation from Buckinhgam Palace for the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton at Westminster Abbey in April 2011. He also has a website which goes by the name ''www.avinashpatra.com'', where he describes himself as an India-born British writer and winner of British Writer of the Year 2010 award.

OneIndia News