Mangaluru: In an incident of identity theft and fraud, unknown perpetrators usurped money from close associates of Dr. Santosh Kumar, the Deputy Commissioner of Mangalore Municipal Corporation, by contacting them through a fake Facebook account impersonating the Deputy Commissioner. A case has been registered under the Cyber-crime unit in this regard.

According to the registered complaint, perpetrators reportedly used photos from Dr. Santhosh Kumar’s original Facebook account, along with Deputy Commissioner’s credentials and created a fake account to target his close friends and associates, and deceitfully procured money.

The perpetrators reportedly contacted Dr. Santosh Kumar’s friends through Facebook Messenger and sought money using the fake account. Dr. Santosh Kumar, who came to know about the fraudulent undertakings happening using his name posted about the incident on his real account to alert his friends and associates.

In his post, he said that an anonymous person had created a Facebook account using his name and was soliciting money from his mutual acquaintances. He requested his friends to not respond to any friend's request, email, message, or call from the suspicious account impersonating him.

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Shimla (PTI): A woman has been arrested from Punjab for allegedly duping another woman of Rs 25 lakhs by promising her to arrange a visa for Canada, police said on Monday.

The accused has been identified as Manju Kumari, a resident of Punjab.

Senior Superintendent of Police SSP Shimla Gaurav Singh said that Manju had contacted the woman several months ago and had promised her to arrange a visa for Canada.

"After this, she asked for money for the same from the victim, which she transferred to her on multiple occasions. However, as time went by, Manju started to make various excuses and ignored her calls," the SSP said.

Upon suspecting being defrauded, the victim's brother registered a complaint, and a case was registered under sections 318 (4) (cheating), 61(2) (criminal conspiracy) and 352 (2) (intentional insults designed to provoke a breach of peace) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), the SSP said.

"Police teams were sent to Haryana and Punjab, but she kept evading arrest as she kept changing her locations as well as her mobile numbers. However, the police teams successfully arrested her on Sunday from a flat located in Kharar in Punjab," he said.

Further investigation into the matter is underway, and the defrauded money is also being recovered, he added.