Mumbai: Man held for cheating 22 women through matrimonial site

The BKC cyber police have arrested a 27-year-old man from Nagpur on Wednesday who is believed to dupe at least 22 women from across the state using a fake profile on matrimonial sites and defrauding them of lakhs. The accused was wanted by police across the state. The police believe more victims may turn up in coming days.

A Class 12 dropout, Kiran Bagwe, a resident of Dombivli, who worked as an office boy posed as an IT engineer in his profile on the sites. He used a picture of a classmate who he thought was good looking as his profile picture on the sites.

Bagwe would send requests to women and start chatting with them online. We have found that he had sent ‘Interest Requests’ to 1,207 women, the police said.

“Bagwe would never meet the women personally. He would pose as a well-educated man belonging to a well-to-do family based abroad,” said assistant commissioner of police (Cyber department) Nandkishore More.

Once the women completely trusted him, he would tell them that he had met an accident and required money for the treatment, added More.

“If the women asked him why he needed money despite being an IT engineer, he would lie to them saying because he was guarantor for a friend’s bank loan and the bank froze his account,” said inspector Sunil Ghosalkar of BKC Cyber police station.

Ghosalkar said Bagwe would disguise himself as an assistant and collect the money. Once he got the money he would stop talking to the women.

After one of the victims approached BKC Cyber police station in September 2014, police started tracing the man whose picture Bagwe used in his profile. When they got hold of Bagwe’s classmate, they found his contact details. During further investigation police officials learnt that Bagwe was trying to dupe another girl, who was a government official in Nagpur. Bagwe who had gone to Nagpur and met the girl, was arrested.

“We have booked him under relevant sections of Indian Penal Code and Information Technology Act. A local court remanded him in police custody up to October 12,” said Prashant Marde, senior inspector of the BKC Cyber police station.

To trap victims accused used voice changing app
To trap victims Kiran Bagwe would use a voice changing mobile application, the police said. According to the police, after contacting his victims through matrimonial websites, Bagwe would do everything to ensure that the victim believed he was going to marry them. He would even give them in writing on legal bond papers that he would marry him.

“Whenever the girls asked him about his parents he would tell them that they are in South Africa. He would tell the victims that his parents will call her (victim). He then used to use the mobile phone app allows the caller to change his voice differently. Using the application Bagwe would change his voice into female’s voice and would talk to the victim pretending to be his mother,” said inspector Sunil Ghosalkar of BKC Cyber police station.

“Bagwe said that he is addicted to poker, and was always in need of money. It is this addiction that made him cheat on women using the matrimonial sites since 2011”, said a police officer, requesting anonymity.

The girl, on whose FIR police arrested Bagwe, was cheated of Rs1.57 lakh as Bagwe had used her ATM card to make purchases, the police said.

He would target high salary earning girls. His victims included engineers, MNC executives and advocates. “Whenever any victim would learn about his fraud, and demand their money back, he would threaten to kill their family members,” a police officer said, requesting anonymity.