Married man poses as woman on Facebook, cheats 15 women in Mumbai of cash, valuables

The 37-year-old resident of Dhule told the police that it was easy to befriend women by posing as a woman

A 37-year-old resident of Dhule, who posed as a woman and cheated women of their valuables by befriending them through a social networking site, was arrested on Sunday.

The police solved the case by accessing the Facebook profiles of those cheated. (GETTY IMAGES/iSTOCK PHOTO)

The police said there are at least 15 complaints registered against the accused, Bhikan Namdev Palande, across Mumbai.

Initially, the police suspected that a couple was conning people. According to crime branch officers, they collected information from six police stations across the city, where women had filed complaints.

They finally cracked the case when they accessed the Facebook profiles of the women who had been cheated.

The accused followed the same modus operandi in all cases.

The officers studied the pattern of crime through the Facebook profile of the accused and traced him.

“We found that Palande had made another fake profile and was chatting with a woman from Borivli,” said a police officer from the property cell of Mumbai crime branch.

Palande lured the widow by promising her that he would get her married to his brother. He was trying to extract money from her by telling her that he needed the money for his brother’s divorce.

The police asked the woman to call Palande to Borivli on Sunday and arrested him.

Palande is married and has two children.

“He would send friend requests to random women from the fake profile and chat with them, pretending to be a woman. He gained their confidence by talking to them and getting involved in their problems,” the officer said. “He would cook up a story while meeting them as a man and take the cash.”

“We have arrested Palande and will hand him over to the Mankhurd police as they had registered the first case against him. We have found that he had been conning 15 women,” added the officer.

“Palande told the police that women easily accept another woman’s Facebook request so he used a woman’s profile to con them.”