Hyderabad: An unidentified person posed as a divorcee and UK-based orthopedic surgeon on a matrimonial website and swindled a doctor from the city of Rs. 1.5 crore in February this year. The doctor transferred the money to an account held by the fraudsters.
The doctor lodged a complaint with the Cybercrime police station about a month ago and after a primary investigation, the case was registered. According to the FIR, the doctor received a message from a man posing as Dr Vipul Prakash on her mobile phone. The woman then started chatting with him.
The man befriended the doctor and informed her that he is staying in England. He then said he was looking for matrimonial alliances from any part of the world.
“The man asked the doctor to check his profile on a matrimonial website that is dedicated to divorcee women. The doctor checked his profile and continued to chat with him,” VC Sajjanar, Cyberabad Police Commissioner said.
The man messaged her saying that he is going to visit India and marry her. The doctor then told her that he is sending many expensive gifts and articles through courier, the complaint states.
“The doctor received a call from a man posing as an official from the customs department. Then he requested her to pay the customs clearance amount in order to get the gifts and articles through home delivery, she transferred Rs. 7,45,500 to his bank account,” the FIR states.
After receiving the money, the man stopped answering the doctor’s calls, the police said. That’s when she realized that she had been duped.
During the course of investigations, the cybercrime police realized that the person posing as a foreign the doctor was, in fact, operating from a location in Delhi. They had created a fake cell phone number (having similar digits of UK cell phone numbers) to message a Mumbai-based doctor and a Nalgonda resident.
While investigating the case, the complainant came up with another complaint on February 26. The complaint stated that after few days of the filing of her complaint at the Cyber Crime police station, she received a Gift Box/locker (having password) from a person on February 15 who claimed to be from a courier service.
She then received a call from Dr. Vipul Prakash that in order to give a locker password to her, he demanded an amount of Rs. 5, 00,000 to be transferred into the bank accounts furnished by a customs officer. She then transferred an amount of Rs. 5, 00,000 into the fraudster’s bank account.
The police tracked down the fraudsters in Delhi and arrested the gang of four from Delhi. The accused have been identified as Giddy Isaac Olu (36) native of Nigeria currently residing in Delhi. Sagar Sharma (24), Sudeep Giri (26), Bikas Balmiki (25), are all natives of Nepal.
The police have frozen the bank an account of the accused which currently has Rs. 3, 05, 076. It has also seized 18 mobile phones, 9 identity proofs, one passport, 25 international SIM cards, one laptop, 67 cheque books, and 15 debit cards.
SIASAT NEWS