A few weeks ago a post graduate engineering girl student came across a person in a social network site. The person claimed to be a resident of London. Over a period of time she developed friendship with the person and he promised to provide her a job in London. After some time, he asked her to send ₹ 5 lakh as Visa processing fees, which she did promptly, believing him. The sequence of he asking for money became more frequent and suddenly after a couple of weeks he severed all contacts with her. But by that time the woman has already remitted close to ₹ 60 lakh to different online accounts as and when provided by the fraudster.
It was so intelligently done that the police are clueless about the fraudster. According to sources in the police the fraudster used different IP address, switched between different Internet kiosks and furnished different bank accounts and used online money transfer and gateway sites.
Apart from job frauds, even online matrimonial frauds are also on the rise, said ACP (Crime) Phalguna Rao.
Recently a 25-year-old M. Tech student, who had posted her profile in a matrimony site, was contacted by a person from Australia. He introduced himself as an Australian citizen and sent her an email, evincing interest in her.
Floored by the sweet talk of the fraudster, the girl chatted with him on a regular basis and he gained her confidence.
As days passed the fraudster started asking money citing some reason or the other and he made her shell out to the tune of ₹18 lakh over a period of time. It was only when he severed contacts that the victim realised that she had been conned and lodged a complaint with the police.
Such frauds are on the rise and both men and women should be careful. They should not fall prey for some sweet talk in the virtual world, said DCP (Zone II) T. Ravi Kumar Murthy.
In the last one year about 9 such high value cases have been reported. It is advisable that young people stay away from befriending unknown people over the Internet, said Mr. Murthy.
Sumit Bhattacharjee
