Pathanamthitta: The Aranmula Police has arrested a cyber fraudster who was allegedly involved in creating fake Facebook profiles of a woman and swindled lakhs of rupees. The accused is identified as Satheesh Japakumar (41), a resident of Prayarakkal Vila House in Parassala, Thiruvananthapuram.
The fraud came to light after a Kozhencherry native approached police with a complaint. As per the complaint, Satheesh contacted the man through a fake Facebook profile and swindled Rs 23 lakh from him.
The accused posed as a mute girl named Vandana Krishna reportedly trapped the man through Facebook in 2019. He also established contact with the complainant through WhatsApp by pretending as the girl’s father and assuming another name Vasudevan Nair -- a retired police superintendent. Over the next four years, the accused borrowed Rs 23 lakh from the Kozhencherry native on different occasions by offering assistance in executing different works.
The accused also took money to offer assistance to upgrade a private college owned by the complainant as a study centre of Madras University. As part of this plan, he visited the college, introducing himself as an official from Tamil Nadu, who is entrusted with the task of inspecting the college on behalf of the university and took away various documents under the pretext of verification.
A police investigation revealed that the accused had left his home in Parassala 12 years ago. He was switching rented houses in different parts of the state to hide his crime. For the past three years, he has been staying at Thykkoodam in Ernakulam. Kozhikode police had also booked Satheesh in a job fraud case.
Satheesh, who had been jobless for the past three years, splurged the swindled money on luxury goods and alcohol, police said.
The cops are also probing whether more people had fallen prey to his cheating. A team led by Pathanamthitta DySP S Nandakumar nabbed Satheesh and produced him before the court. The police will approach the court seeking his custody for a detailed interrogation.
