KOCHI: A woman Lieutenant-Colonel of the Army was arrested by the Kochi City police for allegedly defrauding a man of Rs 15 lakh after posing as a prospective bride on a matrimonial website. The suspect has been identified as Smitha, 43, Soundarya House, Vettamukku, Thiruvananthapuram. She has been working as a nurse in the rank of Lt-Colonel at Pangode Military Camp. Based on a complaint lodged by the man, a team led by Central Assistant Commissioner K Lalji tracked down the accused to Thiruvananthapuram.
According to the police, the accused had created a fake account on the matrimonial website claiming to be a prospective bride looking for a suitable alliance. The complainant, after noticing the suspect’s profile, sent a message notifying her of his interest in her profile.
Soon, both started chatting through the website and the accused introduced herself as a girl from a Malayali family settled in Mumbai and doing her MD in Kolkata after completing MBBS.
She also shared her mobile number and started communicating over the phone.
In the due course, she started sending pictures of her parents and convinced the complainant about her interest in marrying him.
After winning the man’s trust, she sought financial support convincing him about some emergencies. Over a period of time, the complainant remitted Rs 15 lakh in a bank account mentioned by the accused.
After a while, the woman started showing lack of interest in communicating with the complainant. She later told him that she was diagnosed with cancer and was dropping the marriage plans.
Fearing backlash from family members for giving money to a woman, whom he had never met, the complainant kept the incident as a secret. However, after a while, he noticed another profile of a girl on the matrimonial site and grew suspicious of it.
He started communicating with the profile and found that the said profile had certain elements similar to the earlier one. He approached the police with a detailed complaint.
The police said they suspect the involvement of more persons in the fraud and are expecting to make more arrests after completing the probe.