Woman who racked up Rs 6 lakh bill at Delhi luxury hotel had Rs 41 in bank account

The woman stayed at Pullman Hotel near the Delhi airport. (Image credit: www.pullmannewdelhi.com)

A woman who was recently arrested for cheating a luxury hotel in Delhi's Aerocity of around Rs 6 lakh had only Rs 41 in her account when she was nabbed, police said on Tuesday. They said the Andhra Pradesh-based woman's motive behind staying near the airport could not be ascertained so far.

According to a senior police officer, Delhi Police has written to its counterpart in Andhra Pradesh to know if they could provide her address and details about her family members. "The woman was interrogated and counselled by our experts but she was not cooperating with us. We asked her to show her bank account details but she failed to do so," another official said.

He added that when the police checked her back account, they found it had only Rs 41 as the balance amount. The woman, identified as Jhansi Rani Samuel, stayed in the Pullman Hotel located in Aerocity near the Delhi airport for 15 days and allegedly made fraudulent transactions worth around Rs 5,88,176, the police said.

The hotel staff told the police that she had produced a fake identity card of one Isha Dave at the hotel's spa facility and availed services worth Rs 2,11,708, the official said. The police said Samuel showed the hotel staff she was making the transactions on the ICICI Bank UPI app, but upon payment reconciliation, it was discovered that the bank had not received any payment.

"It is suspected that the app she used was dubious," the official said. The official said the woman was not cooperating in the investigation.

She initially told the police that she is a doctor and that her husband, too, is a doctor and lives in New York, however this information is also yet to be established, he added. Samuel was arrested by the police in Delhi on January 13 following a PCR call by the hotel staff.

She was initially arrested for cheating but later Sections 419 (punishment for cheating by impersonation), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and 471 (using as genuine a forged document) of the IPC were added to the FIR, the official said.