Officers of the Cyber Economic and Narcotic (CEN) Police Station arrested a man who is said to have conned some people by posing as a girl on social media.
Mahantesh Moodse, a resident of Nayi Hinglaj village near Nippani, is an unemployed graduate. He was aspiring to be a police sub-inspector and had cleared the physical test. Now, he is facing allegations of deceiving people and collecting around ₹20 lakh from them.
He used to pose as M. Sneha from Belagavi residing in Dubai. He created a fake profile of the girl on social media platforms, including Facebook and Instagram. He used to send friend requests to random men and chat with them.
After establishing trust, he used to demand money from them, sending them his Google Pay number. He has duped people of over ₹19 lakh, CEN officers said. His victims included some youth and some middle age men, they said.
The accused collected pictures and videos that he shared on social media. In a few months he gathered thousands of followers on social media. He collected phone numbers of his victims and sent them messages. But he never spoke to them, to avoid being detected, the police said.
The accused used to stay in Dharwad to prepare for competitive examinations. Whenever he collected money from his victims, he used to go to Goa and splurge it on his habits, the police said.
Meanwhile, Ms. Sneha came to know about her duplicate profile after a friend sent an alert to her. She complained to the social media companies and also sent a note to her doppelganger to take down the profile, but in vain.
She flew down to Belagavi and filed a complaint with the CEN Police Station on July 4. When the police realised the gravity of the situation, they began tracing the details of the person behind the duplicate profile.
B.R. Gaddekar, Inspector of the CEN Police Station, has urged young women to remain careful about their use of the social media and be vigilant against defrauders.
