Mumbai: Two women duped of Rs 23 lakh by fraudsters posing as US nationals

The fraudsters promised to send the women costly gifts or parcels while other gang members tricked them into paying money as processing fees, customs clearance and other charges to get the gift/parcel, said the police. The crime branch’s cyber police station last week registered the first information reports (FIR) in both cases.

In the first case, a 24-year-old woman, who works as a lab technician, told the cyber police that on April 14 she received a message from a fraudster named “Benson Smith ” on her Instagram profile. The message read: “Hey Charming What an astonishing smile you got here I got caught by that wonderful smile, I couldn’t take my eyes off you without saying Hi”.

The complainant replied to the message and they started chatting. The fraudster told her that he was a resident of Florida and presently working as a surgeon in Syria. He said all his savings and gold are in a bank account in Florida and he suspected the manager of the bank was misusing his savings and he wanted to move all his money and gold to a safe place. He also convinced her that he did not have any relatives in Florida and that he felt unsafe in Syria.

He told her that he was sending her all the money and gold in a parcel through a diplomat in the Syrian embassy. On May 5, he messaged her that he had sent her the parcel through ‘emergency courier services” and gave her a parcel tracking code. She tracked the parcel on “Star-Trust Courier Services” website and learned she would receive it on May 6.

The woman then started receiving emails from the courier service and later phone calls from a “diplomat” from the embassy and was asked to pay money for “emergency charges, customs clearance, “to bribe a customs officer”. She ended up paying Rs 15 lakh and later realised she was being cheated.

In the second case, a 49-year-old woman met a fraudster in April this year on a dating website called ‘Aisle’. The fraudster introduced himself as “Patrick Anderson Amir”, an American national who works for the military. He said he was staying in “Incrilink Airbase Hospital Turkey” since 2019. They started chatting on Facebook and later on WhatsApp.

He told her he had fallen in love with her. He then said he had lost his ATM card and for some reason would not be getting his salary and was in dire need of money. In May, she sent him 450 dollars by net banking. He told her he would come to India from Turkey in July and marry her. They kept chatting about their marriage. He also spoke with her parents about their marriage on the phone. He said he needed money for a visa to come to India and in June, the woman sent him another 1,200 dollars.

The woman and her parents started doing all preparations for marriage and the fraudster kept asking for more money for documentation work, flight tickets, medical clearance among others. He promised her that he would return all her money once he comes to India. He sent her a screenshot of an air ticket that he was coming to India from Istanbul on August 7.

The woman went to the Mumbai airport to receive him but he never arrived. Another fraudster ‘Jafrin’ called her and said he is a friend of Patrick and he could not come as he had fallen sick and was admitted to a hospital. When she inquired further about the hospital, he gave vague answers. The woman then realised that she was being cheated and approached the police.

In a similar case recently, the daughter of a Malad businessman was allegedly duped of Rs 5.07 lakh by a fraudster who operated an Instagram account by the name of ‘Bond James’.