The con man, James Rubeli, was arrested after a 20-year-old collegian from Goa, Lesli Fernandes, lodged a first information report at the Cantonment police station on Tuesday. Rubeli was produced before a magistrate and remanded to magisterial custody.

Lesli alleged in the FIR that Rubeli extracted Rs 6,000 from him after promising a job with the Pepsi company in Saudi Arabia. Rubeli also duped Lesli's six friends in a similar way, it added.

Lesli, who has come to Pune to study, stays at Jafrin Lane in the Cantonment. Rubeli, who hails from Girgaum in Mumbai, had come to reside in Lesli's neighbourhood two months back.

Rubeli impressed Lesli and his friends by claiming that he was a flight engineer working with the NEPC Airlines. He went to the extent ofshowing a forged identity card and his uniform to win the confidence of the collegians, inspector in charge of the Cantonment police station Raghunath Govekar said.

The collegians requested Rubeli to provide them jobs in the Gulf after he claimed that the manager of the Pepsi unit in Saudi Arabia was his friend. Rubeli promised them the job and extracted over Rs 11,000 from Lesli and his friends, he added.

The students started demanding repayment of their money when Rubeli failed to provide jobs. However, much to their dismay, he refused to refund the money, according to the police.

A frustrated Lesli approached inspector Govekar. The police arrested Rubeli at his house. They recovered the NEPC uniform and the forged identity card.

During interrogation, Rubeli admitted that he was previously arrested by the Mumbai police on charge of cheating. The Pune police have contacted Mumbai police for further investigation into the case.