Software engineer falls prey to online fraud

Rajkot: The lure of finding a partner on an online platform landed a software engineer and three others in trouble. The four fell for an online cheating scam operated by a gang from Alwar in Rajasthan.
Rahul Parmar, a software engineer, told police that he got in touch with a woman through an online dating application. Parmar initiated conversation through WhatsApp, but it later turned out that the woman’s profile was a fake one and it was being operated by four men.
After initial messages on WhatsApp, Parmar made a video call to the woman. During the video call the woman’s face was covered. Meanwhile, the person on the other side of the call took a screenshot of the video call. Later, Parmar’s face, recorded during the video call, was morphed and used in a pornographic video.
The video was then sent to Parmar and he was asked to pay Rs 5,000 through a payment application. Initially, Parmar transferred Rs 2,000 and before he could send the remaining amount, the four accused were arrested by Rajasthan police. Cops identified the four as Farooq Mev, Nahid Mev, Rahis Mev and Samayuddin Mev.
“Three other persons have also been cheated by these four accused and we have taken their complaints as well,” said inspector M C Vala of Cybercrime police station. The three other victims are Parimal Lathigra, Ishit Patni and Subhash Ghodasar.
“The gang has around 60 members and they used to extort money from people living in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Telangana and Tamil Nadu,” Vala added. Rajkot police will soon be taking the custody of the four accused from Alwar police.