Thrissur: A young lady from a high-profile family based out of Thrissur lost Rs 85,000 and approached the police after a fraudster befriended her as an Amsterdam-based doctor and proposed to marry her through WhatsApp.
According to police, the parents of the young lady, who is working with a private firm in Thrissur, had advertised on matrimonial sites seeking alliance from young men working abroad. “Around three weeks ago, a man who introduced himself as a doctor working at a hospital in Amsterdam, Netherlands, contacted the lady on WhatsApp and proposed to marry her. He also convinced the lady, from a well-to-do family in the district, that he would take her to Amsterdam on a family Visa once they tied the knot. The duo started chatting on WhatsApp since then,” said a source from the Police Commissionerate.
The source added: “A few days later, a woman called the young lady’s family on WhatsApp and introduced herself as the mother of the ‘Amsterdam-based doctor’. The woman raved that her son liked the young lady very much and informed that he had fully agreed to the marriage. The young man and the young lady continued chatting through WhatsApp and the lady fell in love with him. Since both the ‘families were high-profile’, the entire communication between them was in English”.
The young man last week informed the fiancée that he was coming to India from Amsterdam on October 2 and that he would come straight to Thrissur to meet her. As she was awaiting his arrival, she received a telephone call from the ‘Delhi Customs office’ and ‘the officer’ at the other end informed her that the man landed at the New Delhi airport carrying a large amount of Euro currency, hence he was detained and asked to pay a fine of Rs 85,000.
“The ‘Customs Officer’ convinced the young lady that they were contacting her because the Amsterdam man had no other contacts in India. He also said that once the fine is paid, the young man would be returned the entire Euros seized and then he can convert the Euros into Indian currency from any bank whenever required. Believing this, the young lady transferred Rs 85,000 to a bank account via GPay. However, after a few moments, the lady received yet another call asking her to transfer Rs 3 lakhs as a processing fee to convert the Euros to Indian currency. As she didn’t have a sufficient amount at that moment in her account, she could not transfer Rs 3 lakhs immediately. However, she kept on receiving the request calls back-to-back. Then only she realized that it was a fraud. Her family immediately contacted the police station in their vicinity,” said the officer.
The phone numbers of the young man and his mother have been silent since then. Based on the complaint, the police have registered a case and started an investigation.
