Mumbai: Woman duped of Rs 14 lakh on matrimonial website

The Palghar police have arrested a 28-yr old man who would allegedly target women on matrimonial websites and demand money to fund his air travels, stay in costly hotels and own high-end gadgets.

Although he has duped dozens of women, one of them lost Rs 14.14 lakh, as per the police.

The accused has been identified as Deepak Suvarna, who is a resident of Malad. He would lure his victims by pretending to fall in love and promise to marry them. After extracting money from them, he would lose contact with them.

Suvarna and his close friend and alleged accomplice Chaitra Karkera were nabbed by the Manikpur police from Delhi after his latest victim approached the cops 1.5 months ago.

The woman, a resident of Manikpur in Vasai, told the police that she had to sell her jewellery to give to the conman, who extracted Rs 14.14 lakh from her. He had befriended the woman after meeting her on a matrimonial website, and was in touch with her for the past few months, said the police. Both of them belong to the Tulu community.

Suvarna gained her confidence and asked her to loan him two lakh rupees. He told her that he had a lot of money, but his bank account had been frozen for non-payment of taxes and that his chartered accountant had disappeared after committing a forgery. He did not stop there, and continued to take money from her.

After realising that she was duped, the victim lodged a complaint with the Manikpur police station.

Senior inspector of Manikpur police station, Damodar Bandekar formed a team and traced Suvarna to Delhi.

It was found that after taking money from her, Suvarna travelled to Goa, Kerala, Ooty and Kullu-Manali.

A police officer said that Suvarna would celebrate his birthday at different locations. He had recently celebrated his birthday with Karkera at a five-star hotel in Visakhapatnam.

Mumbai Mirror quoted a police officer saying, “To gain the victim’s confidence, Suvarna would ask Kerkera to call the victim posing as his sister and convince her of his credentials. In the case of Manikpur victim, she did not suspect anything amiss until he got out of touch.”

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