The Enforcement Directorate logo.
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Claiming to have been embroiled in an Enforcement Directorate (ED) case, an unknown person who claimed to be a businessman, cheated a city-based woman of Rs 50 lakh.
The 32-year-old victim claimed to have met the suspect, Vijayaraj Gowda, online through “Vokkaliga Matrimony” on September 16. They exchanged their profiles and contact information.
Gowda, who was using ID-VOK373766, told the woman that he was a businessman and was regularly chatting with her.
In one of those days, Gowda introduced his first ruse: he told the woman that his business was stuck in a rut, as there was an Enforcement Directorate (ED) case on him and that all his accounts were blocked or frozen by the investigators.
Next, he brought in the second ruse: he claimed that his father was extremely unwell and that he was in urgent need of money. To back this, he shared some documents, the FIR noted.
The woman, trusting the person as she was looking for a potential match to settle down, began sending him money. Till January 18, she transferred Rs 50,04,484 to the bank accounts shared by the suspect.
When the contact abruptly ended, she realised she had been defrauded and approached the police.
The North Cybercrime Police on January 20 registered an FIR under Sections 66C (identity theft) and 66D (punishment for cheating by personation by using computer resource) of the Information Technology (IT) Act and BNS Section 318 (cheating). A probe is underway.
“This is a classic case of a matrimonial scam, where the suspect gained the trust of the victim and then cheated her by lying to her. This is just one variation. There are other modus operandi where using similar matrimonial platforms, the suspects, after gaining the trust of the victims, lure them into fake stock and crypto investment schemes,” a senior police officer with expertise in cybercrime probe, told DH.
In a similar case registered at the North Cybercrime Station, the same day, a 37-year-old man from Hesaraghatta, looking for a match on Shaadi.com, was cheated of Rs 23.37 lakh.
In this case, the suspect, Pooja Singh, after matching on the Matrimony platform, convinced the victim to start online trading. Believing her, as she had spoken to him over video call, the victim wired the large sum between August 2025 and January 9, after he was told he could gain his investments back in "dollars". A probe is underway.
The officer quoted previously also said that the scam operates on a large scale outside the country, with organised cybercrime dens deploying Artificial Intelligence (AI) and deepfake technology and use convincing personas by understanding the tastes of victims, who look for matches on dating apps or matrimonial apps.