Pune matrimonial fraud widens as five more women from Delhi, Mumbai approach police
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Pune: Cyber crime investigators in the city said they've now been approached by five more women who said they've been cheated by an Australia-based Indian man who was arrested on Wednesday for allegedly duping a Pune techie of Rs 3.6 crore in a case of matrimonial fraud.
"The five women are mostly from Mumbai and Delhi. We have requested them to formally record statements at the police station," said senior inspector of Pune cyber police Swapnali Shinde, leading the investigation into Abhishek Shukla (42), who investigators said may have contacted over 3,000 women through fake profiles on a matrimonial website. He is an OCI (Overseas Citizenship of India) card holder.
Shukla had flown from Singapore to Mumbai when he was arrested at Mumbai airport on June 25, by immigration authorities acting on a lookout circular (LOC) issued by Pune police.
Shukla is the main suspect in a complaint that was lodged last November by the Pune techie (40) who claimed a man named 'Dr Rohit Oberoi' had proposed to her online and later cheated her of Rs 3.6 crore, by promising to invest her money in a Singapore-based start-up.
The complainant is originally from Delhi.
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"We interrogated Shukla and studied his profile on the matrimonial website. He's actually bald but is seen wearing a wig in his profile photos.
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He used this fabricated profile to contact 3,194 women who were on the website. We have sought details of all these profiles from the matrimonial company," inspector Shinde said.
The police officer said Shukla worked as a researcher with an Australian university and even has a PhD in business administration. "He also holds a patent for an online system that screens movies. He used this system to screen Hindi movies in the UAE and other countries and run a successful company," Shinde said.
She added: "He looked very smart in his photo, with the wig. Our original complainant, the Pune woman, also did not realise he was bald," Shinde said, adding that the victim was promised high returns on her investment by Shukla.
"He convinced her that he could help scale up her business to a global level. He even arranged for 'investors' identified as 'Ivon Handayani' and 'Vincent Kuan', who were apparently from Singapore. This was a set up. We have evidence to show 'Handayani' and 'Kuan' don't exist and that these were digital identities being operated by Shukla," Shinde said.
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