FOOLING THE POWERFUL

A CENTRAL AGENCY WAS KEEPING AN EYE ON SHERPURIA'S ACTIVITIES FOR MONTHS AND HAD ALERTED THE UP POLICE TOO

- Prashant Srivastava

A Lutyens’ Delhi address, retired bureaucrats and army officers on the advisory board of his foundation, social media profiles crammed with pictures with the who’s who, going right up to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Meet Sanjay Rai ‘Sherpuria’, the businessman arrested in Kanpur on April 26, on charges of cheating and forgery. Those phrases, in fact, seem inadequate given the scale of his black ops. Compared to the intricate web of deceit Sherpuria wove, even the con pulled by Gujarat-based “PMO man” Kiran Patel, who took the Jammu and Kashmir administration for a ride for months posing as a senior official in the prime minister’s office—before being arrested from a luxury hotel in Srinagar in March—pales in comparison.

Sherpuria's victims span the whole gradient. From industrialists, a prominent Delhi-based one among whom "donated" Rs 6 crore to his Youth Rural Entrepreneur Foundation (YREF), to at least 15,000 youngsters, who were Lutyens' Delhi address, retired bureaucrats and army officers on the advisory board of his foundation, duped of sums as paltry as Rs 2,500 to Rs 5,000 for illusory government jobs. Not to mention senior bureaucrats, who often approached him with requests to "put in a good word" with the high-ups for favourable transfers and postings.