Techie loses Rs 37 lakh to cyber goons; falls in love with ‘lucy’ on dark net

BENGALURU: Sheer desperation on the part of a 34-year-old IT professional from Magadi Road has caused him a triple whammy.

It not only cost him Rs 37 lakh as he became a victim of two back-to-back incidents of cybercrime but also cost him his marriage as his wife has filed for divorce in connection with the second incident.

All this happened over a period of just three months.

The trouble began for Mohan Rao (name changed) in mid-October 2019 when he responded to an online call for applications for engineering jobs in Dubai.

Incidentally, it was from a fake job placement portal, which subsequently told him that he was selected.

A joyous Mohan suspected nothing even when the fraudsters sent him a message saying that as his job in Dubai as an engineer was “confirmed”, he would have to make a payment of Rs 25 lakh so they could arrange his housing and other needs, especially as he was married and had a six-month-old daughter.

An excited Mohan, with an eye on earning a huge salary packet, did not think twice about taking a loan to make the payment.

However, just two days after he made the payment to a bank account specified by the fraudsters, Mohan found that he could no longer access the portal, nor could he get in touch with his contacts who were dealing with his “placement” -- and who had asked him to make the payment.

A week later, realising that he had been duped, Mohan, instead of approaching the cyber police, turned to Dark Net in search of a hacker to help him trace the fraudsters and retrieve his money.

Dark Net is the part of internet below the private deep web that uses custom software and hidden networks superimposed on the architecture of the internet and is considered illegal.

There, he came across a ‘woman’ named ‘Lucy’, with whom he started an online affair as she assured him of her help and cooed sweet-somethings which tugged at his romantic heart-strings.

Once netted, ‘Lucy’ told him that it would be easy to get his Rs 25 lakh back, but that he would have to send her Rs 12 lakh.

Blinded by the affair and desperate to get his money back, Mohan sold one of his houses and paid the amount to ‘Lucy’, keeping his wife in the dark about all these dealings.

And ‘Lucy’ too vanished

But worse was in store for Mohan. His wife came across the chat messages he had exchanged with ‘Lucy’ and realised what was happening behind her back.

She picked up their six-month-old daughter and walked out of his house. She has now filed for divorce and both are being counselled.

A shattered Mohan then filed a case with the cybercrime police on January 17.

“Mohan was afraid of filing a case with the cybercrime police as he had sought help from the Dark Net,” said Dr Bindhya Yohannan, a counsellor at the helpline.