A 47-year-old assistant commissioner at Konkan Bhavan, who stays at Nerul, was cheated of ₹77,000 by an unidentified man after he befriended her on a Marathi matrimonial site.

The complainant, who had registered on the site in February, was approached by one Faheem Reyansh. Mr. Reyansh had told her that he was an employee of a construction company in London. After days of talking, Mr. Reyansh said he was going to Dubai for work and had sent a parcel which she would receive in a few days.

She received a call on March 18. The caller introduced himself as a customs officer from Delhi and said she had a parcel sent by Mr. Reyansh in London. He said that the parcel weighed 12 kg and she would have to pay ₹37,000 for excess weight. After she verified with Mr. Reyansh, she paid to a bank account belonging to one Chang Hamingthanga.

Later she again got a call that the parcel was of 30,000 pounds and as a penalty she would have to pay ₹1.8 lakh. When she spoke to him, Mr. Reyansh said he had spoken to the customs officer and that they had agreed to payment of any amount while the rest could be paid after she received the parcel. He assured that he would pay her back once he came to India. She then transferred ₹40,000.

On March 20, she again received a call that that she would have to pay the rest of the amount — ₹1.4 lakh — to release her parcel. The complainant then visited the official website of the customs and found that no such amount was ever transferred to them.

“She approached us with a written complaint following which we conducted an enquiry. After getting the technical details of the caller from the cyber cell, we have registered an FIR. Investigations are on and the accused is yet to be arrested. We suspect that it could be a gang who cons females via matrimonial sites,” an officer from Nerul police station said.