Cyber crooks dupe Marol woman of Rs 88 lakhs on pretext of marriage

An American recently duped a woman of Rs 88 lakh on the pretext of marriage.

The 32-year Marol resident got to know the man, identified by the police as Romney Abraham, through a popular matrimonial website. "They both became close to each other and soon decided to get married. Abraham then told the victim that he was in need of money and requested her to help him," an officer from the BKC cyber crime police station, said.

On Abraham's instructions, the woman went on to deposit as much as Rs88lakh in various bank accounts. She carried out more than 100 transactions, the officer said. "Recently, Abraham started avoiding the victim and also threatened her, asking her not to contact him. The woman then realised that she had been duped," he said.

"In order to trace the culprits we are in the process of getting details of the beneficiary accounts in which the money was deposited. We suspect there are several people involved in this racket, including foreign nationals," said another senior police officer.

A case has been lodged under sections 420 (cheating), 465 (forgery), 467 (forgery of valuable security), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document) and 34 (common intention) of the IPC and sections 66A (sending offensive, annoying or threatening email, SMS or MMS) and 66D (whoever by means of any communication device or computer resource cheats by impersonation) of the Information Technology Act.

Senior inspector Sunil Ghosalkar and assistant commissioner of police Nandkishore More confirmed that a case has been registered, but refused to elaborate.