A 33-year-old woman from the Thane district of Maharashtra was defrauded of Rs 4.5 lakh by online scammers. The police have registered an offence under section 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code against three persons involved in duping the victim, a former employee of an IT company, an official said.
As per the complaint, the woman created a profile on a matrimonial site in May this year, where one of the accused got in touch with her by posing as a civil engineer based out of the UK, the official said.
The duo started talking to each other and the accused informed the victim that he will be relocating to Mumbai soon, he said. Earlier this month, the accused informed the woman that he was sending her some clothes and other items and sent her details to track the package with a UK address, the official said.
A few days later, the victim received a call from a woman posing as an official from the Delhi airport asking her to make some payments to receive the parcel. She was also directed by the accused to get in touch with the courier company representative, he said.
The victim was allegedly forced to pay Rs 4.5 lakh in installments, the officer claimed, adding that when the parcel did not arrive, the victim recognised she had been tricked.