‘UK man’ on matrimonial site cheats techie of Rs 4 lakh

GURUGRAM: A software engineer was allegedly duped of around Rs 4 lakh by a person whom she met on a matrimonial site. The man, who claimed to be based in the UK, had proposed marriage to the complainant and told her he would be coming to India to talk about the wedding.
The woman, who works with a software MNC based in Gurugram, got in touch with Himanshu Negi on a matrimonial website in April. Negi said his family was from Uttarakhand but shifted to England when he was a child.
The two exchanged numbers and started chatting on WhatsApp. “He shared my number with his mother. His mother also talked to me over WhatsApp voice calls. He said he would come to India to meet my family and plan the wedding if all went well,” the woman said in her complaint to police.
On June 5, he shared his flight ticket (London-Mumbai) with her. The next day, she got a call around 10.30am. The caller allegedly said she was an aviation security official at Mumbai airport. “She told me that they have caught Himanshu as he was carrying excess luggage for his flight to Delhi and asked me to pay Rs 55,680 as Himanshu’s card wasn’t working. I sent the money to two bank accounts as directed by her,”she said.
After making the transfer, the woman got more calls, in which she was asked to pay additional money as Himanshu was carrying gold jewellery and £85,000 without a receipt. She transferred a total of Rs 3.96 lakh to several bank accounts. Later, both the caller and Himanshu’s numbers were found to be switched off. Realising she was cheated, she approached police in June-end.
After a probe, an FIR was registered at Cyber police station under Section 420 (cheating) of the IPC and sections 66 (offensive message through computer resource) and 66D (cheating by using computer resource) of the IT Act on Monday. “Police are trying to track the accused,” spokesperson Subhash Boken said.