Mumbai: A cyber-fraud posing as a London-based surgeon on Instagram has duped a 22-year-old woman of Rs 8.20 lakh by saying that she is like his sister and he will send her to a courier on Raksha Bandhan as a gift. An FIR was registered in the matter on Friday last week by the Dahisar police station. The complainant, working as a sales executive, said that she had received a friend request on Instagram on August 1 from the handle ‘doctor.kzamesjayden’. She accepted the friend request on August 5, after which the two started chatting. The fraudster told her that he was a surgeon in London and after chatting for a while, they exchanged phone numbers and started talking on WhatsApp.
The fraudster addressed the complainant on WhatsApp as his ‘sister’ and started asking her about Raksha Bandhan. The victim explained to him that women tie rakhis on the wrists of their brothers after which the brothers give gifts to their sisters. Then the fraudster told her that he wanted to send the gift to her too but the complainant refused to accept any gift.
Fraud took place in this way
Thereafter on 14 August, he told her that he had already sent her gifts and that it would reach India on 15 August. He said that the victim would have to pay Rs 20,000 as customs clearance. After giving the money, she got a message that her gift parcel had landed at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport. The woman sent the money to the bank account provided by her and the next day she received a message on her WhatsApp number, saying that she would have to pay Rs 20,000 as vehicle charges and insurance. According to the reports, the woman also paid this amount but another fraudster posing as a courier agent told her that she would have to pay more as the gift was cash. The fraudsters kept demanding money and by September 2, she paid Rs 8.20 lakh. When the fraudsters did not stop asking for more money, the victim realized that she was being cheated and informed her brother who took her to the police station.