A woman in Bengaluru was cheated of ₹11.2 lakh by a man who befriended her on Facebook after claiming to be based in the United Kingdom (U.K).
The woman, 40, is from R.R. Nagar. In her complaint to the West Division cybercrime police, she claimed to have met the accused, who identified himself as Roland James Damian from the U.K., on Facebook on May 24. Within hours, they exchanged phone numbers and started chatting.
Four days later, she received a phone call from Roland informing her that he had landed at Delhi airport to see her but was stuck there due to some issues.
Soon, a person identifying himself as an immigration officer from Delhi airport took over the phone call. The ‘immigration officer’ informed that Roland was carrying 60,000 U.K. pounds and needed to pay a fee of ₹85,000 to get a yellow card for currency exchange, and that the amount had to be paid in Indian currency.
The woman volunteered to bail her friend out and transferred the money online to the account number mentioned by the ‘immigration officer’.
A few minutes later, she received another call from the same person telling her to pay another fee of ₹11.2 lakh, failing which Roland would be detained and deported.
The woman transferred the money to five accounts through IMPS and NEFT. Soon after the money was transferred, the phone call was disconnected. After repeated attempts to contact Roland, the woman realised that she had been cheated.
She approached the West division cybercrime police on June 3. The police registered a case against an unknown person, charging him under the IT Act, for cheating and impersonation.
