BENGALURU: A 39-year-old woman and her actor-husband were arrested by the Cyber Crime police of the Criminal Investigation Department on charges of duping a 34-year-old software engineer of Rs 60 lakh by creating a fake profile on a dating website and luring him. The accused have been identified as Rupali Majumdar and her husband Kushan Majumdar (48), who are residents of Kolkata.
Police said that Ramesh (name changed), a software engineer, had a profile on www.mingle2.com, a dating website. There, he came in contact with one, Arpita, whose user profile was ‘Shompa76’, in July 2017. She introduced herself as a school teacher in Kolkata and they became close after exchanging phone numbers and photos on WhatsApp.
A few days later, Arpita requested him to give Rs 30,000 as her father was admitted in 'Tata Birla Heart Centre' at Kolkata. Believing her, he transferred the money online to the bank account number provided by her. She emotionally blackmailed the complainant and requested him to transfer some more money saying her father’s health was getting complicated. Ramesh transferred a total of `59.72 lakh to two bank accounts in the name of the two accused in successive transactions in a span of six months.
“Later, she started avoiding him and only then he realised that he was conned. After trying to get in touch with her and realising it was futile, he filed a complaint in April. Cyber Crime SP Sachin P Ghorpade, Police Inspector C S Anand and other staff collected the bank account details and related CCTV footage. On verifying the details, it was established that a Kolkata-based housewife and her husband were involved in this case. A team went to Kolkata and traced the accused couple and arrested them,” police said.
“Rupali is a BCom graduate and she wanted to live a luxurious life. To earn quick money, she created a fake profile on the dating website. She downloaded a photo of a model from a website and posted it as her profile picture. She introduced herself as a teacher, doctor, etc. to men and conned them. Her husband, also a BCom graduate and a diploma holder in automobile engineering, has worked as a salesman with banks earlier. Later, he had joined media as a freelancer and scriptwriter. He has also acted in Bengali TV soaps like ‘Sathpak Bada’, ‘Kurukshetra’, ‘Pala Badalin’, ‘Moachak’ and others.
"For the last three years, he had no income and thus conspired with his wife and cheated men. From 2009, both the accused have no specific income or job. Cash of Rs 44,000, two mobile phones and a few bank passbooks were seized from them and investigation is on to establish their involvement in other cases,” police added.