Matrimonial frauds: Mumbai police warns prospective brides and grooms

Mumbai: With matrimonial fraud cases on the rise, Mumbai Police has issued an advisory for prospective brides and grooms to avoid being cheated of their money

Mumbai: With matrimonial fraud cases on the rise, Mumbai Police has issued an advisory for prospective brides and grooms to avoid being cheated of their money. As per police statistics, 16 cases of fraud on matrimonial websites were registered in 2021. However, officials believe the actual number is much higher as many complainants don’t lodge a complaint owing to shame.

Most of the cases are registered by the Cyber Police Wing of the Mumbai Police which specialises in dealing with offences related to the Information Technology Act. (HT FILE)

“Fraudsters usually target women and men who are elder are desperate to get married. They usually claim to be working in foreign countries as the verification in such cases becomes furthermore difficult. Once they identify the target, the frauds befriend them and after gaining their trust, they start cheating the victim,” a senior police officer said.

Giving examples, police said that 29-year-old Aditya alias Tanmay Mhatre posed as a scientist with the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) or with the US government’s civilian space program agency National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on matrimonial sites. He cheated more than fourteen women to date, the police said.

Mhatre initially shows reluctance in meeting prospective brides but once they insist, he keeps the meeting at a five-star hotel where he comes in a chauffeur-driven car to impress the women.

Once he gains their confidence, he starts demanding money. The police said he claims to have cheated over 50 women, however, they have found only fourteen cases against him registered in Pune, Navi-Mumbai, Mumbai and Thane jurisdiction.

In a recent case, he took ₹14.36 lakh from a woman and was demanding another ₹25 lakh claiming that his mother was serious. Mhatre was arrested on January 13, 2022.

“Though the accused has confessed to cheating several women at times there are no cases lodged by the prospective brides. We even have convinced some victims to lodge complaints against the accused Navi-Mumbai resident Mhatre,” said Ashok Morale, additional commissioner of police, Thane crime branch.

Mumbai Police registered 16 cases of matrimonial cheating in 2021, most of which were registered by the Cyber Police Wing of the Mumbai Police which specialises in dealing with offences related to the Information Technology Act.

Similarly, B-Tech graduate Vishal Chavan alias Anurag Chavan, a Kalyan resident, cheated several women by posing as a vice-president of a multinational mobile company before being arrested on January 19, 2022.

The police said Chavan duped at least 40 women to date. However, only seven cases are registered against him.

In another case, a 32-year-old female engineer working with a PSU fell in love with a conman who claimed to work in the United Kingdom. The man told her that he was going to Canada for work for fifteen days and he will marry her after coming back. In the meantime, he told her that he was sending her a gift.

“She later started getting calls from customs agents asking to pay import duty, the next day she got a call to pay GST, she was told the parcel contained 95,000 UK pounds as a gift. She called up the accused who told her that he will pay her the entire amount once he returns to India,” said an officer from Navi Mumbai Police.

The woman ended up paying around ₹57 lakh as currency conversion charges, insurance, security charges apart from various taxes to get the gift. The police also lodged a complaint but could not find the accused.

Another victim, a Mulund resident working as a project control engineer for a private company, met a man on a matrimonial portal who claimed to be Vivek Despande and a resident of London. He told her he was sending her some jewellery as a gift and $30,000.

“I believed him so much, for not a single minute I suspected that he could cheat me. He had gained my confidence and on his insistence, I ended up making the payments. Everything looked so real,” the victim who was cheated to the tune of ₹8.69 lakh told Hindustan Times.

She could even track her gift on a courier company’s website.

The Navghar police said, “The woman paid more ₹61,000 as conversion charges. The fraudster even made a fake website that looked like a bank website and showed ₹22 lakhs in her bank account. Only when she tried to transfer the money to her bank account and called up the customer care she realised that the website was fake.”

Police has registered a case of cheating under the Information Technology Act and are searching for the accused.

However, in the case of a 30-year-old Ghatkopar woman she followed the police for over a year to get the con arrested.

“I met this person on a matrimonial site who told me he works as an assistant manager in a private firm. We decided to get married, we even got engaged just before the marriage. I later learnt that he was already married to another woman. Till the time we spoke, I never suspected anything. Only when I got a call from a woman who claimed to be his wife, I investigated the matter,” the woman said.

She went to the temple and collected the documents of his earlier marriage, including a photo. She approached the police station thrice after they initially refused to register a First Information Report and with the help of a lawyer got the cheater arrested.

Not just women, men have also been victims of such financial frauds. “In February 2021, Pune police had busted a gang of nine women and two men who got in touch with men who crossed the traditional age of marriage. They would post photos of pretty women and tell the prospective bridegroom that she belonged to a poor family but was very clever, then ask the bridegroom to pay for her jewellery. She would get married and then flee with the jewellery before the honeymoon,” said advocate and cyber expert, Vicky Shah.

“While dealing on matrimonial portals one should be very careful. Verifying the background of the person dealing with is very important. If possible, the prospective bride or bridegroom should also verify from the employer about the details of the person, they are interested in. Most of the matrimonial portals don’t have any system to verify the profiles which are uploaded on their portals. They don’t have proper Know Your Customer (KYC) of the people, neither do they take any responsibility as they act only as a medium. However, marriage is a sensitive issue which needs to be dealt with very carefully,” said Shah.