Woman loses Rs 49 lakh over business deal in Pune

PUNE: A senior executive working with a software company in the city lost Rs 49.15 lakh to a man from the ‘US’, whom she met through a matrimonial site and was dating online between March and August last year.

According to the police, the 49-year-old single woman, who lives in Dhanori, transferred the money to 27 accounts, most of which were registered with different banks in Delhi. As such, the fraud may not be the handiwork of a single person, the police added.
“Prima facie, it is suspected that the person, who contacted the victim on the matrimonial site, is from India and routed the calls made to the victim via different servers based in the US. Thus, the woman believed that the man was based in America,” said senior inspector Arun Avhad of Vishrantwadi police.
The woman had a profile on a matrimonial website and the man, who identified himself as Denis James from USA, contacted her on the website in March last year. “The two started chatting. They became friends and exchanged phone numbers. The man then told her about the ‘lucrative profits’ in the business of Kola seeds and offered her an investment deal for high returns from marketing and distribution of the seeds in India,” said Avhad.
In folk medicine, Kola nuts are considered useful for aiding digestion among its many other benefits.
“In order to get the seeds, he asked her to transfer money to his accounts and gave her different bank accounts every time he raised the demand. The woman ended up transferring Rs49.15 lakh to 27 bank accounts until August last year. However, she did not get the seed consignment by December 2019 as promised and the man also stopped taking her calls,” said Avhad.
The senior inspector said, “We suspect the name Denis James used by the fraudster is fake. Whatever he mentioned in his matrimonial profile is fake and misleading.”