Surgeon duped of ₹95 lakh in elaborate cyber scam

A Mumbai orthopedic surgeon was defrauded of ₹95 lakh by a woman he met online, who faked a hacker threat to extort money from him.

MUMBAI: A 35-year-old orthopedic surgeon working at a leading hospital in Parel was cheated of ₹95 lakh in an elaborate cyber fraud. Early in 2025 a woman befriended him online then later asked him for money claiming that a hacker, who had hacked into their intimate chats, was demanding a ransom.

Surgeon duped of ₹95 lakh in elaborate cyber scam

According to the police, the surgeon began chatting with the woman after accepting her friend request on Instagram. The woman claimed she was an MBBS student from a medical college in Chandigarh, and the academic pressure had left her feeling lonely and depressed.

The police said the duo then connected on Whatsapp and their friendship took on an intimate nature involving the exchange of nude photos and sexually explicit conversations. The surgeon even paid for gifts demanded by the woman, the police added.

In May, the woman claimed she was coming to meet the victim in Mumbai and even sent him photos of her business class flight tickets. However, when the doctor checked the passenger list online, he could not find her.

The police said that on May 2, the woman told the surgeon that someone from Thailand had hacked into their chats using the Pegasus spyware and was threatening to make the chats public if she did not pay him 3.1 bitcoins worth ₹2.5 crores. “She told the doctor she was afraid and was going to sell all her jewellery to pay the hacker,” said a police officer. Although suspicious, the surgeon believed her.

The police said the woman then asked him for money, threatening to write to the Medical Council, file a sexual harassment complaint against him. She even told him that she would send the council the sexually explicit pictures he had sent her.

From April to July, the surgeon paid her ₹94.47 lakhs in about 42 transactions. The police added that he had even taken out loans from the back to pay her. However, he later realised that the bank account provided by the girl was under a different name. He then looked her up in the list of students at the Chandigarh college and found a girl of the same name who had been enrolled not in an MBBS course but in a bachelor of Arts degree in 2021.

The police said that on August 12, the woman contacted the surgeon’s wife claiming she had ‘interesting stuff to share’. Realising he had been cheated, the surgeon finally approached the police.

The central cyber police have registered an offence under sections 308 (extortion), 318 (cheating) and 319 (cheating by personation) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, and various sections of the Information Technology Act.