Two arrested for fraudulent at-home Covid-19 sample collections in Jaipur

Jaipur: Shiprapath police in Jaipur arrested two youths involved in fraudulent home collection of Covid-19 samples. The accused identified as Abhishek Sharma and Nikhil Akhad – threw away Covid-19 samples after collecting them from the people’s homes and provided the victims fake Covid-19 reports. They used the letterhead of a popular testing lab. The matter came to light when the lab owner registered an FIR with the police.

Abhishek used to work at a lab until he was fired a few months ago. He then started defrauding people. He would charge Rs 800-Rs 1000 for a test. He used to promote his services through text messages and social media. After collecting samples from people, he would throw them away in dustbins and then call up Nikhil who would edit a test report template, changing the name and address of the person and prepare a fake report. Abhishek would send that report to the victim.

It is possible that many people who were actually positive received a negative Covid-19 report, and vice versa.

“During preliminary investigation, it has come up that they duped people in the name of two famous testing labs of the city. The lab registration number on reports were found fake. Further investigation is going on,” said a police officer.

Abhishek and Nikhil are both residents of Dausa districts.