Man befriended women through Facebook, cheated 15 of cash, valuables

A 37-year-old resident of Dhule, who posed as a woman and cheated women of their valuables by befriending them through a social networking site, was arrested on Sunday.

The police said there are at least 15 complaints registered against Bhikan Namdev Palande across Mumbai.

Initially, the police suspected that a couple was cheating people. They solved the case by accessing the Facebook profiles of those cheated.

According to the crime branch officers, they collected information from more than six police stations across the city where women had filed a complaint. The crime had the same modus operandi.

The officers studied the pattern of the crime through the Facebook profile of the accused and traced him. “We found that Palande had made another fake profile and was chatting with a woman from Borivli,” said a police officer.

Palande had lured the widow by promising her that he would get her married to his brother.

He was trying to extract money from her by telling her that he needed the money for his brother’s divorce. The police asked the woman to call Palande to Borivli on Sunday and arrested him.

Palande is married and has two children.

“He sent friend requests to random women from the fake profile and began chatting with them, pretending to be a woman. He gained their confidence by talking to them and getting involved in their problems. He would cook up a story while meeting them as a man and take the cash,” added the officer.

“We have arrested Palande and will hand him over to the Mankhurd police as they had registered the first case against him. We have found that he had been calling 15 women,” said the officer.

“Palande told the police that women easily accept another woman’s Facebook request so he used a woman’s profile to con them,” said a police officer from the property cell of the Mumbai crime branch.