Conman swindles money from techie through Shaadi.com

Online fraudsters cheated a software engineer and his sister more than Rs 1 lakh, after the duo zeroed-in on a marriage profile for the sister in Shaadi.com and believed they were dealing with a groom from the US.

The brother-sister duo chose a wedding profile named Krishna Mahinder, who claimed to be a doctorate in civil architecture born and bred in the United States.

The techie’s sister showed interest in his profile as he looked out for a traditional bride from India preferably from the eastern side.

The sister and the prospective groom shared their phone numbers and were soon talked and texted. They also exchanged family photographs of each others on social media just two weeks after contacting. Mahinder told the techie’s sister that he had sent a gift for her and was excited to visit India sooner.

Two days later, the sister received a phone call from an unknown woman claiming she was from the Customs Department and informed her about a gift courier package. She said Rs 28,000 needed to be paid as duty tax for the package to be released.

The sister called Mahinder to confirm if this was the gift packet he sent and he said ‘yes’. Mahinder also said he had kept 25,000 USD inside the box for her.

Excited, the sister informed her brother and both transferred the cash to the account number provided by the woman posing as customs official.

But a while later, the woman called once again saying they found foreign currency in the package and needed to get an ‘Anti-Money Laundering certificate’ that required Rs 98,000, after which the Indian equivalent of the US currency will be deposited to the sister’s account.

Happy about getting 25,000 USD, the brother-sister duo transferred the money. Hours later, the woman again called up asking them to pay “Income Tax” for the package at which the duo grew suspicious and asked the woman for her credentials. But the woman hung up.

The sister called Mahinder and asked him to come on video chat, but he too refused. The duo then headed to Koramangala police and filed a complaint.