Nagpur: 'German boyfriend' dupes woman of Rs 5.15 lakh on pretext of sending gift

A case has been registered against an unidentified man for duping a woman from Ajni in Nagpur of Rs 5.15 lakh by posing as a German national, police said on Saturday.

The unidentified accused started interacting with the victim, a resident of Kashi Nagar, through Facebook in January 2019 and they soon started talking to each other over phone, assistant police inspector Swati Deodhar of Ajni police station said.

The victim, who is an IT engineer, had also accepted the accused's marriage proposal, following which he informed her that he was sending her a gift from Germany, she added.

In March last year, the woman received a call from a man, who introduced himself as a customs officer in Delhi and asked her to pay Rs 30,000 as customs duty to get the package released, the official said.

After paying the amount, the victim again received a call stating she will have to pay Rs 4.85 lakh more, the official said, adding that the woman managed to borrow the amount from two of her friends and transferred it to the bank account the man mentioned.

The victim realised that she had been conned after a couple of days when she did not receive any intimation about the gift and her German boyfriend also disappeared, Deodhar said.

While the victim did not approach the police initially, she filed a complaint last week when the friends she had borrowed Rs 4.85 lakh from started threatening her to pay them back, the officer said.

An offence under section 420 (cheating) and other relevant provisions of the Indian Penal Code has been registered by the Ajni police, she said.

The victim's friends, who issued her threats to return the money, have also been charged, she added.