A 41-year-old woman fell prey to matrimonial and customs fraud, wherein she was duped to the tune of ₹1.9 lakh by two persons. The accused had contacted the victim via a matrimonial website, on the pretext of looking for a match, and then asked her to make a payment as he was caught by the customs department. A case has been registered at Andheri police station and the accused has been booked under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and Information Technology Act.
According to police sources, the woman, who had enrolled with a popular matrimonial website to look for a prospective groom, had connected with a man, Aditya Ganesh, who claimed to be from the United Kingdom. While the victim spoke to Ganesh at length, they decided to meet in India to take things forward. On June 25, Ganesh was to arrive in India from the UK, and had called the woman on her phone to inform that he was intercepted by the Customs officers, for having an excess number of pounds of currency, which is why he was caught by the official and levied a fine.
In a statement given to Andheri Police, the woman said that Ganesh asked her to wire the money in the customs officer's account, which he will later return once he is free from the airport. Believing Ganesh, the woman wired ₹1,90,750 in the customs officer's account, only to later realise that Ganesh and the officer had switched off their mobile phones. The woman then approached Andheri Police and informed them that Ganesh had opened a fake profile on a matrimonial website and cheated on her.
Subsequently, a case of cheating, impersonation, common intention was lodged against Ganesh and the customs officers at Andheri police station. While no arrests have been made, police are probing the matter. Police have also approached the bank's nodal officer to freeze the account in a bid to retrieve the money.
