Pune private firm manager loses Rs 3.16 crore to ‘US-based NRI’ in matrimony fraud

PUNE: A 45-year-old manager with a private company in Pimpri Chinchwad lost Rs3.16 crore between June 2023 and Sept 2024 to a "US-based NRI" whom she had contacted through a matrimonial site."The woman transferred the amount to 32 bank accounts through 350 transactions during this period. In the process, she spent her entire savings and loans from financial institutions," senior inspector Ravikiran Nale of Pimpri Chinchwad Cyber police told TOI."From her statement recorded with us, the woman seemed totally taken in by the crooks' promise to marry her and take her to the US. She kept transferring money the man asked for on some pretext or the other, like for overcoming financial loss in business and evading action. She made the transfers to the point where the man stopped contacting her, and she realised the fraud," Nale said."The woman subsequently slipped into depression and barely spoke about the incident to her family members till she opened up recently to a close relative. The family then convinced her to submit a complaint application to the police," he said.After verification of her plea, the Pimpri Chinchwad cyber police formally registered a case on Thursday.In the first half of 2023, the complainant had registered herself with a matrimonial website. In May 2023, a man, who claimed to be from Alaska in the US, contacted her after checking her profile on the website and proposed to marry her. "He impressed upon her that he was running a business in Alaska," Nale said.The woman was impressed by the man's profile, and they started chatting with each other over messages. Later, they started conversing over video calls. "The woman said in her complaint that after a few days, the man requested her to help him financially as he was suffering losses in his business. The woman immediately transferred money to the bank account number provided to her," he said.The man then took money from her on the pretext of regularising his account in a Dubai-based bank. "After that, he took money from her by citing reasons such as medical treatment, to repay loans taken from friends, for buying air tickets from Dubai to New Delhi, from New Delhi to Venezuela, and under the pretext of customs clearance. A few months later, he contacted the woman and claimed that he was detained at Istanbul airport in Turkey and again took money from her. A man posing as immigration officer spoke with the victim over cellphone and made her believe that her would-be husband was in trouble," the officer said.Nale said the woman recently got married and discussed the issue with her husband and close relatives. She then filed an online complaint application and lodged a complaint with the Cyber police on Thursday. "As the transactions happened about a year ago, it is very difficult to recover her money. We have sought transaction details from the woman's bank," he said.