Mumbai: A 45-year-old Aarey-based man, who comes from a lower middle-class background, was duped to the tune of ₹3.77 lakh by a woman who posed as a prospective bride for him and made him pay the money on pretext of various charges and taxes to complete a transaction of 1,50,000 USD that she had sent. While the accused woman has been booked under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and Information Technology Act at Aarey police station, no arrests have been made yet.
According to the complainant's statement, he had enrolled himself at a matrimonial website in December 2019, and within a month, received a profile request from a woman named Alisha Mohan. While Alisha contacted the victim and exchanged numbers, their constant conversations soon blossomed into love and they decided to get engaged.
The victim, who comes from a poor background, had not concealed his financial status, to which Alisha said that even if she is staying in Paris, she wanted to marry an Indian national and work for the good of poor people, said the complainant in his statement. In June 2020, Alisha claimed that she wanted to visit India and asked the victim to arrange for her accommodations. Since he did not have the financial capacity to do so, he asked Alisha to arrange for everything herself.
The statement read, "Alisha claimed to have sent 1,50,000 USD for the arrangements and in a series of transactions from June 2020 till December last year, I was asked to pay a sum of ₹3,77,230 for various charges, taxes to complete the transaction and claim the money. When I finally asked Alisha to cancel the transaction and take her money back, she said it was impossible as the money had been wired to me."
The victim realised that he had been duped by a cyber criminal posing as his prospective match and asked Alisha to return the money. Surprisingly, Alisha demanded ₹3 lakh more to return all of the victim's money that he had gathered by mortgaging and selling the land back in his hometown. Realising that his money was long gone, the victim approached the Aarey Police and lodged a complaint, acting on which a case of cheating was registered against Alisha under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and Information Technology Act on Thursday.
