Ruhi Khan for Mumbai Mirror

Mumbai, Jan 14: The Juhu police have arrested a 52-year-old man who conned young women of large amounts of money by responding to their matrimonial insertions in newspapers and on the net posing as a young, handsome, successful professional.

Manohar Trilokchand Lalchandani, a former railway employee, was arrested after he responded to 25-year-old Radhika Pundit’s (name changed) matrimonial insertion in newspapers, recently.

He posed as Vivek Kapoor, a distant cousin of film star Kareena Kapoor. He said he was a model and lived in the same building as Ashwariya Rai and  Sachin Tendulkar.

After an exchange of kundalis, which apparently were a perfect match, Lalchandani emailed Radhika his photograph — a handsome young man. It later turned out to be that of a model in an airline advertisement.

Soon, the con Kapoor and Radhika, a software professional in a multinational company, were exchanging emails and having long telephone conversations. Kapoor sometimes would change his voice and pretend it was was Vivek’s father on the line.

According to investigating officer Ramesh Nagre of the Juhu police station, Lalchandani would modify his voice and language depending on who he was playing that day — Vivek or Vivek’s father. “Hey girl, how are you,” would be the son’s opening line, whereas the father would start the conversation with —  “Aur beta, kaise hai sab ghar pe.”

Kapoor came off as a perfect gentleman and the Pundits were drawn by his charm. “He had gained complete trust of the girl and the courtship saw them discuss their personal confidential details like internet banking passwords,” said Nagre. The two, however, never met.

THE YOUNG MAN HE POSED AS

One day Kapoor told Radhika that his mother had made special prayers for their prosperous future and as per the tradition, they would have to share the amount of the offerings made. Radhika promptly gave him her internet account password.

Within a couple of weeks, she found almost Rs 2.5 lakh withdrawn from her account. Radhika’s parents then lodged a complaint with the Juhu police station.

  “There were no leads initially as Lalchandani would change his mobile phone every 15 days. But the detection team left no stone unturned to finally nab the culprit,” said senior police inspector Pradip Shinde.

“Old telephone records gave us Lalchandani’s mobile number. This led us to Lalchandani’s new mobile number,” said Nagre. “We checked records of the new mobile number and noticed that many calls were made to a bank customer service number. With the help of the bank, we gathered details of his transactions at a particular ATM in Pimpri near Pune,” added Nagre.

By now the investigating team had identified the culprit as he had several cases pending against him in Powai, Antop Hill, D N Nagar, Bandra, Sewree and Santacruz. The cops now knew that in December 2003, Lalchandani had escaped from police custody.

Armed with a photograph of Lalchandani, a crack team was despatched to Pune and Lalchandani was arrested.