MUMBAI: The Central region Cyber police on Friday arrested a 33-year-old ICWA drop-out for posing as a girl, befriending a city software engineer, promising to marry and cheating him of over Rs 31.67 lakh in two separate cases.
The accused Sayyed Saif Ahmed was arrested from Jamshedpur in Jharkhand and has been remanded in city police custody till July 25. He used the money to play online games, said police. He would give English and Economics tuition to students in Jharkhand, said an investigator.
The 31-year-old victim had fallen in love with the 'girl' he had been chatting with for over a year and would send her money through the bank from his and his father's joint accounts. The matter came to light after the victim's father noticed huge money being transferred from his accounts.
"The accused had created a profile on Facebook posing as a girl. He then sent a friend request to the software engineer and later they befriended last year. The duo had been chatting through social media. The accused had downloaded some photos from the internet, cropped them and sent them to the engineer claiming it was her photos. The engineer was madly in love with the 'girl'. The accused then sent social media messages to the engineer claiming her mother was in hospital and she needed money for her treatment. To help his lady love, the engineer sent Rs seven lakh from a bank account jointly held by him and his father. When his father learnt about it, he confronted him and lodged an FIR at the Wadala TT police last year," said police.
The engineer then asked his 'lover' to create another FB account to avoid being noticed. The accused created another account and they kept chatting. "During the last one year, the accused demanded money for some reason or the other and the software engineer paid Rs 24.67 lakh from his account and a joint account held by him and his father. The engineer's father approached the regional Cyber police station and lodged an FIR on March 26 this year," said police. Whenever the engineer asked to talk to her, the accused refused. The accused sent a recorded conversation between a man and a woman claiming the woman in the conversation was her.
A team led by DCP Hemrajsingh Rajput, comprising SPI Rajesh Nagwade, Nilesh Hembade and Santosh Khadke worked on the four bank accounts where money was transferred. Investigators collected the IP addresses of the social media chats, collected the accused's mobile number details and CDR, and finally apprehended him from Jamshedpur.
"The accused had given his elder brother's bank account where the first Rs seven lakh was transferred. When his brother asked him about the money coming to his account, the accused told him that he was into fish business and had used the account. His brother asked him not to use his account and then the accused opened other accounts," said police. A mobile phone and two debit cards have been recovered from the accused.The police have frozen his accounts which had Rs 1.36 lakh. ..........................
