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New Delhi: A woman in Delhi was duped of Rs. 6 lakhs by a man pretending to be a merchant navy officer from Sweden. She was 32-year-old. Narrating her ordeal to the police, the woman, resident of Pratap Nagar, said that she was in contact with a person named Pradeep Kumar Thakur since September 15.
She said that Thakur had told him that he had asked his agent to book a flight from Lisbon to Delhi. But then, they said something went wrong and the agent booked the flight to Mumbai. Thakur later planned to take another flight from Mumbai to Delhi.
Thakur had told her that he wanted to move to India and live in Delhi. The woman said to police officials,“Thakur told me that he had plans to settle down in India permanently with his mother and 5-year-old daughter. He asked me where I worked, and said he would settle in Delhi accordingly. We exchanged numbers and started talking on WhatsApp.”
On October 16, the woman got a WhatsApp call from Pradeep, who said he was stuck at Mumbai Customs and needed help. Subsequently, she received a call from another woman posing as a Customs official in Mumbai, claiming that Pradeep had been detained with a cheque of Rs. 2 crore, exceeding the limit set for an overseas traveler entering India.
Convinced by the detailed narrative, the woman ended up transferring Rs. 6 lakhs, only to discover later that she fell victim to a scam. Thus, a police case was registered on November 30 under sections 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) and 34 (common intention) of the IPC. As of now, there’s no reports about the police nabbing the scammer.
