A 47-year-old woman from Vasai has been duped to the tune of Rs 11.85 lakh by her Facebook friend, who claimed to be a pilot from London. The accused had sought monetary help from the complainant and induced her to transfer money to different bank accounts, the police said.
According to the Waliv police, the complainant works in a private firm. Around seven months ago, she come in contact with a person who claimed to be a pilot from London. The two would often communicate with each other through calls and text messages. On August 1, the accused told the woman that he had come to Dubai for aviation training on behalf of an airline company. He told the woman that his credit card had got blocked and sought her help.
The accused then started regularly asking for monetary help and induced her to pay through online transactions. On August 17, he told the complainant that he had come to Delhi airport and was apprehended since he did not have a 'foreigner vaccine certificate' and once again sought financial help.
From August 1 to August 19, the accused induced the woman to pay Rs 11.85 lakh in different bank accounts. As the demands for money kept increasing, the woman spoke to a friend about it and was told that it appears she had been duped. The woman approached the police and got a complaint lodged on Saturday.
Last week a 45-year-old government employee from Thane lost a whopping Rs 1.63 crore to a fraudster who she had come in contact with on Instagram, in a con that continued for over five months. The fraudster who had befriended the complainant had claimed that he had been caught at the international airport in Delhi with USD 85,000 and asked for her assistance. The complainant, in a span of five months, paid as much as Rs 1.63 crore in 75 transactions to the various bank accounts provided by the accused.
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