A 79-year-old man from Mulund lost more than 1.5 crores in a romance scam, he was in contact with a woman he met on a European social media app in May.
The Mulund man, who has previously worked as an engineer ended up pawning his wife’s jewellery and was also asking people about selling his house.
The man was saved only when his USA-based son became suspicious after being informed that his father was asking about selling the house, came back to India and questioned his father was it revealed that the man was being conned.
The family is now filing an FIR with the Mulund police.
In the police complaint, the alleged victim has said that he had subscribed to the European social media platform where he met this ‘Spanish woman’ in May and started talking with her and later they moved to WhatsApp and talked regularly.
The woman who identified herself as Vivian Lovett (41) had told teh man that she is from the USA and had moved to Spain with her two children, she also said that she had lost her husband.
The ‘Spanish woman’ then later sent a parcel containing a laptop, mobile phone and jewellery which the man refused to accept but was later convinced as she said the items could be donated at an orphanage in Mumbai.
In July, however, the 79-year-old got a call from one “Radhika Sharma from Customs clearance in Delhi”. “Sharma” told him there was a gift that had been sent from Spain but it also had foreign currency, so he would have to pay exchange duty. Initially, he paid Rs 50,000 for which he received an e-mail with a forged letterhead of Delhi Customs, an officer said.
However, ‘Sharma’ told Lovette that she will have to come to India as the amount was huge. After a week, Lovette informed the man that she had been arrested at the Delhi airport. ‘Sharma’ apparently told teh woman that she was carrying a lot of foreign currency and was arrested for money laundering. Lovett informed the man and scared, he decided to pawn his wife’s jewellery to get the woman out of custody. The man paid 30 lakhs initially.
However, the scam did not end there, until early November, the woman kept asking for money from the man in various pretexts.
