Social media–based frauds continue to rise, and yet another case has emerged in Pune involving a young man being duped through Instagram. According to police, a group lured the victim by forming a friendship online and then pretending to be interested in a romantic relationship. A case has been registered at the Bharti Vidyapeeth Police Station against a minor girl and four to five others for extorting money from him, with three accused already detained. Investigators said the gang used social media familiarity to build trust before executing the fraud.
According to the complaint filed by the 28-year-old victim, he became acquainted with a 17-and-a-half-year-old girl on Instagram, and their frequent chatting soon turned into a close friendship. She expressed a desire to meet in person and asked him to come to the Katraj area. After a brief conversation, she suggested visiting the Katraj Ghat. On their way, she asked him to stop the motorcycle at a particular spot, where her accomplices—who had been hiding—suddenly appeared. They threatened him, forcibly took him to Yevalewadi, assaulted him, abused him, and demanded ₹70,000 by threatening to file a POCSO case. When he said he didn’t have the money, they snatched ₹10,000 and kept threatening him over the phone for the remaining amount.
Unable to bear the harassment, the young man finally approached the Bharti Vidyapeeth Police Station and filed a complaint. Police registered a case against the girl and her associates, arrested three of them, and launched a search for the remaining accused. The investigation is being carried out under the guidance of Assistant Police Inspector Thorat. In a separate case, the Economic Offences Wing arrested a 70-year-old man named Prabhakar Shetty from Karnataka’s Udupi district. He was an accomplice of a fraudster, Rupesh Chaudhary, who posed as an Intelligence Bureau officer and cheated around 15 people of ₹17 crore by promising MHADA flats. The main accused, Chaudhary, had died earlier, and businessman Aslam Qureshi is the complainant in this matter.