Mumbai Cyber Safe: Woman loses ₹4.5 lakh to Facebook 'friend' in gift fraud

Mumbai: The police are on the lookout for a man who befriended a 50-year-old woman from Mulund on Facebook and defrauded her to the tune of ₹4.58 lakh.

The accused, who claimed to be from the Netherlands, told the victim that he would be sending a gift to her and induced her to pay money in 43 transactions in order to claim the gift.

Fraudster used to call victim several times a day

According to the Navghar police, the woman worked in a private company in Mulund West. In December 2022, she met and became friends on Facebook with a person living in the Netherlands. After that the said the person used to call her several times a day over the phone.

The Facebook friend then told the woman that he cares about her and would send her a gift of 30000 dollars and other gifts for Christmas. Later, she was told that the gift is stuck in Customs and she will have to pay for clearance, after which she was assured that the gift will arrive at her home.

Accused asked victim to send money to different accounts to claim the gift parcel

The fraudster then kept asking the victim to send money to different accounts to claim the gift parcel and from time to time between 21,12,2022 to 13,03,2023 on a total of 43 occasions, the woman sent the money to different accounts but when she did not receive the claimed gifts sent by her friend, she realised that she has been cheated.

On Saturday, police registered a case on charges of cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property, identity theft, and cheating by personation by using computer resources under the relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and Information Technology Act.