MUMBAI: In a case that has left city cops baffled about the level of gullibility among victims of cyber crime, a scheming mother-daughter duo and a relative allegedly cooked up stories of ailments, death and abduction to dupe a man in his fifties of Rs 1.1 crore online.
The trio was arrested by the north region cyber police and their bank accounts were frozen.
The prime accused, Rani Sarang (42), sent a friendship request to the victim on Facebook this April. Sarang claimed her husband and the victim used to be colleagues at an electrical works company 17 years ago. The victim believed her and accepted her friendship request.
The two began to chat over Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp and became friends. After some time passed, Sarang told the victim she had suffered a brain stroke and was in need of money. The victim transferred the sum she asked for to her. After she claimed to have “recovered”, Sarang told the man her daughter was down with a serious illness. She asked for more money from the victim.
Thereafter, she told him that her uncle had died and she needed funds to organise his funeral.
“Sarang’s 24-year-old daughter, Ruchika Hatipkar, contacted the victim next. She told him her mother had passed away and she needed funds for her funeral. The victim paid up again,” a police official said. Sarang’s relative, Prasad Bhanushali, thereafter reached out to the victim and said she had not died but in fact had been abducted. He asked the victim to help organise money to pay the ransom. Later, he told the victim that Sarang had contracted a mental illness and was in need of electric shock therapy.
The victim paid up every time. Sarang and her accomplices had created several aliases online to swindle the victim.
When the victim started to demand his money back, Sarang and her accomplices shut their Facebook accounts. Last month, he approached the north region cyber police after being duped of more than a crore over six months. The police used technical surveillance methods to uncover the accused’s identities and their whereabouts. The trio was held and Rs 17 lakh was frozen in their bank accounts. Police also found gold worth Rs 22 lakh that the accused had purchased from the swindled amount.
“We would advise people to be very alert with whom they talk to and befriend on social media. If you have been defrauded or have information of someone else being cheated, please inform the cyber police immediately,” said DCP (cyber) Rashmi Karandikar.
