A 25-year-old chartered accountant in Sendhwa, part of Madhya Pradesh's Barwani district, lost nearly Rs 3 lakh after a man posing as a marriage prospect from England lured her with promises of expensive gifts. Police have since cracked an interstate cyber fraud network and arrested two women from Uttarakhand in connection with the case.
How the racket was busted
Sendhwa City police station, working alongside the Barwani cyber cell, traced the money trail back to two women identified as Rekha and Nida, both residents of Bajpur town in Uttarakhand's Udham Singh Nagar district. Investigators found that a Bajpur resident named Shobhit Jatav had convinced the two women to lend their bank accounts for the fraud. He told them the accounts would receive funds tied to online gaming and promised each of them a commission of Rs 5,000. Those very accounts were later used to move the swindled money further along the chain. Police have frozen and seized close to Rs 95,000 held in the women's accounts, while a hunt for the remaining members of the gang continues.
A profile on Shaadi.com started it all
The victim, who lives in Sendhwa, works a work-from-home job for a company based in Bengaluru. Looking to get married, she had created a profile on Shaadi.com. It was there that she began talking to a man who claimed to be based in England. As the conversation deepened, he proposed marriage and told her he was sending her expensive gifts worth roughly Rs 15 lakh.
Fake courier receipt, then demands for cash
To make the story believable, the accused sent her a forged receipt on WhatsApp, made to look like it came from a courier firm in England. He then began asking for money in installments, citing courier charges and customs duty. Whenever she hesitated, he turned emotional to pressure her into paying. Caught in that pressure, she ended up transferring close to Rs 3 lakh across several bank accounts, dipping into her own savings, borrowing from friends and relatives, and even taking a salary advance from her employer.
Trail leads to Bhopal students, search for gang continues
The investigation also revealed that part of the stolen money had passed through the bank accounts of two medical students in Bhopal. Police, however, found no evidence linking the students themselves to the fraud. The case remains open as police continue searching for the other members of the network behind the scam.
