Cricketer turned thug Mrinank arrested, looted Hotel Taj Palace, even Rishabh Pant was not spared

A youth, who claimed to have played Under-19 cricket for Haryana and represented Mumbai Indians in the IPL, has been arrested from the Taj Palace Hotel in July 2022 on charges of fraud of Rs 5 lakh. A Delhi Police official identified the accused as 25-year-old Mrinak Singh, a resident of Faridabad, and the victims of his fraud include cricketer Rishabh Pant as well as owners and managers of several luxury hotels across the country, whom he duped. He had deceived himself by pretending to be a senior IPS officer of Karnataka.

It is being told that Mrinank was arrested in August last year following a complaint by the security director of Taj Palace Hotel at Chanakyapuri police station. It was alleged that Mrinank Singh, posing as a cricketer, had stayed in the hotel from 22-29 July 2022. He left the hotel without paying the bill of Rs 5,53,362 and without informing. When asked about the payment, he said that this work will be done by his company Adidas.

New Delhi Deputy Commissioner of Police Ravikant Kumar said the hotel's bank statements were shared with him. He also shared the UTR number of an online transaction worth Rs 2 lakh. After this, when the hotel system was checked, it was found that he had not made any payment. Contacted him several times for payment, but every time he made false promises and always gave wrong information. During the investigation of the case, notice was given under Section 41A CrPC. The notice was sent to his address, but he was not found there.

The Additional DCP said that he was taking all measures to avoid police investigation. His mobile phone remained in switched off mode and most of his communications were on social media platforms or internet chatting applications. His acquaintances were assured that he was not in India and was now settled in Dubai. After this, the local court also issued a look out circular against him with a non-bailable warrant in view of the possibility of him fleeing out of the country.

On Monday, he was detained by immigration officials at IGI airport as his LOC was already there when he was trying to board a flight to Hong Kong and was handed over to the police, the Additional DCP said.

After interrogation, Mrinank Singh also revealed that he had defrauded several luxury resorts/hotels of lakhs of rupees by posing as ADGP Karnataka and on several occasions used his stardom as an IPL cricketer to influence them and Stayed for several days and left the hotel without paying the dues and promised to pay later.

Additional CP said that his victims include hotels, bars, restaurants, girls, cab drivers. He had also defrauded cricketer Rishabh Pant of Rs 1.63 crore in 2020-21. Preliminary analysis of Singh's mobile phone has revealed his friendship with young models/girls and it contains numerous videos and photographs, some of which are highly objectionable. The police presented him in the court, from where he has been sent on two-day police remand.