He is 31 and is 3.5 feet tall. But his Facebook profile shows him to be a tall, handsome young man. Rajapathi’s idea was simple - pretend to be someone else on the social networking site, enter into a relationship with a girl and dupe her of money. That’s exactly what he did. By the time the 22-year-old victim realised that the profile was fake, she was poorer by Rs 3 lakh and 50 tola gold ornaments.
In the latest case of online cheating, Rajapathi duped an unsuspecting girl by posing on Facebook as a man seeking to marry her. According to the complaint filed on October 17 with the Cyber Crime police, the girl had come in contact with Rajapathi on Facebook as well as Bharathstudents website.
After interacting with her for some time, Rajapathi proposed to marry her and she agreed, thinking him to be the man as seen in the photos he uploaded. Subsequently, Rajapathi said that he had a kidney problem and requested financial support from the girl.
Over a period of eight months from Jan to October 2012, she gave a sum of Rs 3 lakh in cash and gold ornaments weighing 50 tolas which her parents had kept for the purpose of the marriage of her and her sister.
“The accused collected the cash and gold from the victim by introducing himself as Rajapathi’s friend Sridhar. He told her that Rajapathi was undergoing treatment and had sent him to collect the money,” additional DGP, CID, S V Ramana Murthy said. Rajapathi then pledged the gold in a finance firm and to lead a lavish lifestyle.
After the girl suspected foul play and complained, the Cyber crime sleuths zeroed in on Rajapathi. “He is an intermediate dropout and is the son of a retired IDPL employee. He downloaded the image of a handsome man and created a profile on FB solely to trap girls,” Ramana Murthy said.
After arresting him from his residence at Ferozeguda in Bowenpally, police recoverd Rs 4.75 lakh and 18.5 tola gold ornaments besides a laptop, data card and two mobile phones.