02 October,2024 08:43 PM IST | Mumbai | mid-day online correspondent
Representational Pic/File
A woman was allegedly cheated of Rs 18 lakh by a fraudster who befriended her on social media, police said on Wednesday, reported the PTI.
According to the PTI, the 29-year-old woman, who hails from Ratnagiri district in Maharashtra and works as a caretaker here, filed a complaint in this regard with Versova police station on Tuesday, said an official.
She came in contact with a person on Facebook in January 2023, she told police.
He claimed to be serving in the Indian Army and posted in Jammu and Kashmir.
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After they started chatting regularly, he requested her to lend him some money, citing medical issues. The woman transferred money to a UPI address provided by him, the complaint said.
He asked for money on multiple occasion after that, and the woman ended up transferring a total of Rs 18,30,101 to various accounts. Only when he stopped responding to her calls and messages, she realised that she had been taken for a ride.
A case was registered against two persons whose UPI address was used for transferring money, and probe was on, the police official said, the news agency reported.
Meanwhile, in an another incident, an elderly woman from Khar has fallen victim to a fraudster posing as a CBI officer, losing Rs 8.8 lakh. The Khar police have registered a case and launched investigations into the matter, an official had last week said.
According to the police, the fraud began in August when the woman received a phone call from a person claiming to be one Vinay Kumar Chaibe, an officer from the CBI's Bangalore branch. The fraudster told her that a writ petition had been filed against her in the Bangalore court, alleging that fake bank accounts were opened in her name using her Aadhaar card, from which Rs 20 lakh had been taken by Naresh Goyal, who is under arrest for money laundering.
The fraudster warned the woman that she could be arrested as well. In a panic, the woman denied any knowledge of Goyal or the alleged accounts. The fraudster threatened her, saying she would need to go to the Delhi High Court to clear her name, the police said.
(with PTI inputs)
