66 year old's Facebook 'girlfriend' cheats him of Rs 35 lakh
GURUGRAM: Love is blind. It can be an expensive affair too. This realisation dawned on a 66-year-old former banker late, only after he lost Rs 35 lakh to a ‘Facebook friend’ who claimed she was travelling from London to India only to meet him.
The retired bank official, who lives in the DLF 1 area, not only gave away Rs 13 lakh of his savings but also took a loan of Rs 22 lakh from private lenders to help out his newly found girlfriend, who claimed she had been detained at Mumbai airport by immigrations officials for lack of documents.
It all started on May 19 when the man, still a bachelor, received a friend request from a woman, who introduced herself as Jenny Anderson, on Facebook. He accepted it.
During casual chats on Facebook, the woman asked for his WhatsApp number. Soon they started chatting on WhatsApp.
“Jenny claimed she was single and lived with her mother in London, where she also owned a jewellery shop. Further, she said she travelled to different countries, including India, often to procure gold,” the man alleged.
On May 26, the woman told him that she was planning to celebrate the 11th anniversary of her shop and she wanted to invite him for the same. She also asked for his home address, saying she wanted to send him some gifts. He shared his address but expressed his inability to travel to London as he was alone.
A few days later, on May 29, Jenny informed him on WhatsApp that she was coming to India. “Jenny said she would board the flight on June 1. She further said she would land in Mumbai and then take a connecting flight to Delhi, where she was supposed stay for a week before leaving for Dubai,” he told police.
Jenny further said the main reason behind her visit to India was to meet him, apart from procuring gold ornaments for her showroom. “Can I stay at your house? She asked me on WhatsApp and shared her photo boarding the flight,” he claimed.
On June 1, he received a call from a woman, who claimed she was Pooja from the immigrations department at Mumbai airport. Pooja said Jenny Anderson from the UK had landed in Mumbai but she was not allowed to take the flight to Delhi as she had failed to comply with two mandatory requirements. First, Jenny was carrying foreign currency (British pound) worth Rs 68 lakh without any valid documents (to indicate the source of the money) and second, she was not carrying a health certificate, the caller told the retired banker.
Pooja then handed the phone to Jenny, who started crying and requested him to pay the fine as she had no other contact in India. Jenny asked him to take loan and promised to return the money. He said Pooja, and later another man claimed to be Kumar Sen from the Delhi airport authority, kept calling him over the next few days. The duo threatened to file a case against him for Jenny’s offence.
The old man eventually made over 20 transaction and deposited Rs 35 lakh to different bank account numbers provided by Jenny between June 1 and June 15. But Jenny never came to visit him.
Finally, after all his attempts to reach out to her on Facebook, WhatsApp and phone failed, he filed a complaint at DLF 1 police station earlier this week.
“We have received a complaint in this regard and are probing the case with help from the cyber crime cell,” said a senior officer at DLF 1 police station.
courtesy : timesofindia.indiatimes.com
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Kalaburagi: 29-year-old woman’s body found in burnt state 5 yrs after ‘separation’ from husband
Kalaburagi: A 29-year-old woman, Jyothi, who was a resident of the Sangameshwara Colony in the city, was allegedly murdered and her body set on fire, in an incident reported from Itaga village of Kalaburagi taluk.
Jyothi, who got married 10 years ago, had left her husband five years ago, returned to her parents’ house and was living there since then. Jyothi had gone out of home on Thursday morning; in the afternoon, however, her body was found in a charred state.
Farhatabad Police officers have registered a case and are investigating. They have suspected the deceased woman to have been murdered and a family feud to be the reason for the possible murder.
