Wine and dine with Indian cricketers rip-off busted, tickets bought at Rs 31K

“Meet and Greet with the Indian Cricket Team.” 
Fliers with this message have been seen at stadiums all via the India-Australia ODI and T20 sequence. For 550 Australian {dollars} (Rs 31,083) per head, there was a promise of “amazing food, beer, wine and soft drink, fantastic interviews and Q&A’s”. The occasion was to be held on the Manjits Wharf restaurant in Sydney on January 5, simply when the Indian Test squad was to land in Sydney.
On Tuesday, near 200 ticket-holders have been anticipated to land on the venue with the hope of spending a night with India’s cricket stars. They have been to be greeted by the native police, who knowledgeable them that they’d been conned.Deep Gujral, common supervisor at Manjits Wharf, too was taken for a trip by the promoter of the occasion that by no means occurred, who has been arrested.
Speaking to The Indian Express from Sydney, Gujral mentioned that the alleged fraudster bought in contact with him in September. “He got in touch with us quite a few months back, which is not unusual. Since ours is a Michelin starred and chef hatted restaurant, a table for two will take four weeks on the waitlist,” Gujral tells The Indian Express.
“The deposit for booking the entire restaurant is AUD 75,000, but he paid only a 1,000 upfront. When we approached him for the rest of the deposit we got no answer. So we knew his event wasn’t going to happen.”

He mentioned since his restaurant was typically frequented by the cricketers, it was focused.
“The Indian team anyway frequently dines at the restaurant, the restaurant is a quality fine-dine Indian establishment, the stars aligned for this guy to try this scam,” he says. “Our good identify has come into disrepute due to this man.
On Tuesday, the restaurant was compelled to interrupt the disappointing information to those that clutched the faux tickets as a prized possession.
“Naturally, nobody was happy. And we empathise and sympathise with them,” Gujral says. “Since it’s a premium restaurant, and as he claimed the Indian team was coming, he could justify the cost in the scam. Basically the intention was to sell as many tickets as possible and run away with the money. And since the restaurant was already booked out we couldn’t let the people hoping to meet the cricketers come in to dine.”
“The police luckily caught the guy and he’s in lockup,” Gujral provides. “Now he’ll have to start paying back for everything he’s done.”
The occasion was to be held on the Manjits Wharf restaurant in Sydney on January 5. (Twitter/allrestaurant)
Gujral says that they’ve been delivering meals to the cricketers repeatedly.
“We look after the catering of the Indian team whenever they’re in Sydney. And every second day we have players over here, even (Virat) Kohli, who is vegan. We have an outdoor section, which is reserved for them. The players have my number, so they call and tell me if they’re coming or if they want something delivered,” he says.
“Right now we send food to the hotel, be it their morning Upma or Pongal, or some of the North Indian dishes. So we have a good tie (up) with the team. And they’re the ones who gave me the information that this scam is going on. It’s been over a month since we informed the police, who have now caught the guy.”