A father-son duo parading in a space suit escorted by cops is not a common sight. These are cons who allegedly duped a Delhi-based businessman of Rs. 1.43 crore claiming they worked for NASA. The Delhi Police arrested the two on Tuesday.

Plastic space suits, ‘RP’ copper plate, anti-radiation chemical stickers made by them to lure and convince their victims that they work for NASA were seized from them, police said.

The accused have been identified as Virender Mohan Brar (56) and Nitin Mohan alias Bawa Brar (30) both residents of Paschim Vihar, Delhi.

Based on a complaint from businessman Narender that Mohan and Nitin cheated him claiming they were dealing Rice Pullers (RP) used by NASA for research.

“Virender posed as MD of a company stated that he can arrange the sale of ‘RP’ to NASA at a price of around Rs 37,500 crore after testing its genuineness, which would be done by scientists of DRDO and some chemicals would be imported for the same as well. Narender was lured and told that if he invested the returns would be great,” said Bhisham Singh, DCP, Crime Branch.

In his complaint Narender alleged that he came in contact with a man who told him that ‘Rice Puller’ dealings involve huge profits.

The accused would fool the victim by saying that the is a rare piece of copper, which is struck by thunderbolt in the hills of Uttarakhand giving it power to pull rice and is being used by NASA for advanced space research.

The testing of the RP was scheduled in Hapur but could not happen as the accused persons made an excuse that the place was not conducive and after that the said testing was delayed by them on one or another pretext.

Another round of negotiations for another test finalised at Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh also did not finalise. But testing was cancelled last moment stating weather issues. This is when the victim realised he cheated by the so-called scientists.

What is a rice puller?

A rice puller is a conman’s device in which a fraud takes a copper plate or utensil and coat it with liquid magnet and then fill some boiled rice with small iron wires and fools the victim by pulling the rice grain towards the magnet-coated copper article.