Pune: Man creates actor’s fake Facebook account, dupes woman

PUNE: A 25-year-old Pimpri resident was arrested for creating a fake account of a popular Marathi actor on a social networking website and duping a woman from Ahmednagar of ornaments worth Rs1.4 lakh.
The suspect, Shivtej Chavan, created a Facebook account using the name of actor Akash Thosar of the Marathi movie “Sairat”. He befriended the woman in October last year.
In January, the suspect told her he needed money as his father was ill, so she offered her gold ornaments. He told her his “friend” would collect the ornaments. and collected them himself. He promised to return them immediately. But, he deleted the fake social media account and stopped contacting the woman.
The matter came to light on May 22 when the woman’s husband found that her “mangalsutra” and ring were missing. They then lodged an FIR.
Inspector Arun Pardeshi of the Ahmednagar police’s cybercrime cell said the suspect was taken into custody on Sunday. “We have recovered the mangalsutra and ring. He said he duped the woman to earn easy money,” Pardeshi said.