Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (SP)

Bengaluru, Dec 9: A person who got to know a lady through Shaadi.com website, succeeded in getting his friends to call the said lady in the guise of customs officials, and was able to force her to part with Rs 45 lac. The victim of this fraud was Pragya Boobna, a resident of Murugesh Palya in the city.

Pragya gave the name of the fraudster as Pramoor Kumar and three others. The Jeevanbima Nagar station here have registered a case against Pramod and three others.

The lady had uploaded her bio-data and photo on Shaadi.com website. A person, who observed her details, called her, duly introducing himself as Pramoor Kumar. He claimed that he was working for a software company at London and that he had come to like her. He told her that he would come back to India in a few months and settle down at Mumbai. By speaking often, he got friendly with her and succeeded in getting details about her background. He told her that he would be sending her a precious gift box from USA in a few days.

Three days after he made the above call, three strangers called her, introducing themselves as customs officers from the airport. They said that she had received a gift box from USA which contains two cheques amounting US$ 37,000. They said that they had found it to be illegal remittance and asked her to either release the gift box by paying taxes as applicable or face legal action.

The girl got apprehensive at the threat and told Pramoor about it. Pramoor told her that he would see that she was not harmed, by talking to a lawyer known to him. However, he saw that his friends called her in the guise of customs officials and also got amounts remitted to various accounts in the name of lawyer charges, taxes, etc.

The police said that the lady realized that she was taken for a ride, after her attempts to contact Pramoor failed. Thereafter she filed a complaint.