Mumbai: Woman conned by Nigerian man of 74 lakhs through matrimonial website

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A divorcee from Shivaji Park is the latest victim of the Nigerian gang that dues women by meeting them on matrimonial websites.

The woman said that she transferred Rs 74 laks into the fraudster's account after he said she had to ‘bail him out' of a sticky situation at the airport as per reports by The Times of India. A common ploy that theses fraudsters use, security agencies were shocked by the number of women who fell prey to this trick, across the country.

The gang's target are divorcees and despite the large number of women who have been victimized by this gang, the matrimonial sites have not yet put any system in place to weed out these con men.

In this case, the Mumbai police, for the first time has listed a leading matrimonial site as a co-accused along with the fraudster and his accomplices. After the victim filed a complaint with the cyper crime section of the police, they booked the matrimonial site, the fraudsters and aides under various penal codes for cheating, forgery and impersonation under the IT act.

In a statement to TOI, the woman said that she received an email for one Amar Joshi a few days after she created her profile. He claimed to a UK national and wanted an Indian bride. Impressed with his profile and pictures the lady gave him her number and the two started chatting. He then told her that he would fly down to Mumbai on July 10 to fix a date for marriage. But when the woman went to the airport to receive the man she got a call from him stating that all was not well.

"First Joshi said hello and then handed over the phone to a woman who identified herself as a customs official at Delhi airport and said her department had caught Joshi with excess US dollars. She demanded Rs 38 lakh as fine to release him. The woman transferred the sum into four bank accounts. The next day, Joshi called her again and said he was finally arriving in Mumbai but had now been stopped at the city airport over some other duty. He made her transfer Rs 36 lakh into six accounts and stopped taking her calls." Said a police official in a statement to TOI.