Woman meets fake IAF officer on dating app in Bengaluru, loses Rs 31.5 lakh | Bengaluru News
Bengaluru: Befriending a person on a dating app proved costly for a 31-year-old software engineer, who lost Rs 31.5 lakh to cyber fraud.The police have launched a hunt for the accused, who pretended to be a commando in the Indian Air Force. In her complaint, a resident of Electronics City said she the accused identified himself as ‘Arsh Singh’, in May on the dating app Bumble. Arsh, who claimed to be from Himachal Pradesh, started sending her messages on WhatsApp after they exchanged phone numbers. A few days later, Arsh told her that he had suffered bullet injuries in a war, following which, he left the IAF job and started working in the Intelligence Bureau (IB). He asked her out on a date and they met a couple of times in Koramangala and surrounding places. During their meetings, Arsh told her he was facing financial hurdles to open a robotics company and sought her help. When the complainant told him she didn’t have that much money, he managed to convince her to take a loan from a bank and opt for instant loan applications. He promised to return the money to her in a couple of weeks. Believing him, the woman took loans from multiple platforms and transferred Rs 15 lakh from one of her bank accounts and Rs 4 lakh from another bank account. He asked her to transfer money to a bank account in the name of Deepak Kumar and a few UPI IDs through a digital payment application. In total, she transferred Rs 31.5 lakh in two transactions by July 9. Later, Arsh went incommunicado by switching off his number, which he used to make WhatsApp calls to her, and she realised he was a fraudster. She initially complained to the cyber helpline 1930. She started receiving calls from loan apps continuously for repayment and then approached Electronics City police on Aug 24 to lodge a complaint. A senior police officer said the fraudster did not make regular calls, only WhatsApp calls by using a virtual private network (VPN). “We have asked the service providers for details of the person in whose name the sim card is registered. We have also asked banks to provide details of the accounts to which she transferred the money. Further efforts are being made to nab the accused. A case has been registered under the Information Technology Act and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) section 318 (cheating),” the officer said. One should be very careful about people they meet on dating apps or social media platforms. They should not do any financial transactions without knowing the person completely, the officer added.
