BENGALURU: A 36-year-old woman, who dreamt of marrying a doctor whom she met through a popular matrimonial website, was conned of Rs 48.86 lakh by the would-be groom.Geetha (name changed), who lives in an upscale apartment in North Bengaluru, had registered her profile with a well-known matrimonial website and was in search of a suitable groom. She came across the profile of one Dr Rajesh Amish Ganesh, and expressed interest in the profile, on October 23 last year. Rajesh accepted her request and got in touch with her. They both exchanged their details through WhatsApp and e-mails.
During the conversation, Rajesh allegedly claimed that he was a doctor and was working in Jordan. He is said to have expressed keen interest in marrying Geetha, who trusted him completely and both decided to get married. He then allegedly told her that he was in need of money to take transfer from Jordan to India and also needed money for other purposes.
Geetha agreed to transfer the money through internet banking. Rajesh gave her details of different bank accounts, to which Geetha transferred a total of Rs 48.86 lakhs in several transactions. After the money was credited, Rajesh started avoiding Geetha and was not available for contact over the phone or any other means.
After desperate attempts to get in touch with him and being unsuccessful, Geetha approached the Cyber Crime police and registered a complaint with them. “As per her complaint, she was in touch with Rajesh from October 23, 2017 to November 30, 2017. She has tried to contact him over the phone and through the matrimonial website but in vain. We are trying to nab the accused by tracing his Internet Protocol address and bank accounts. As of now, we are not sure whether he is a doctor or he has cheated other women similarly in the past,” an official said, adding that even educated women, who are aware about cyber crimes, were falling prey to fraudsters.
The police have booked the accused for identity theft, cheating by impersonation by using computer resource under the provisions of the Information Technology Act while cheating under the IPC.