Engineer arrested for impersonating woman, defrauding Navi Mumbai businessman of Rs 34 lakhs on dating app

NAVI MUMBAI: The cyber crime police team arrested a 24-year-old youth, an engineer, by tracking his whereabouts to Dehradun, Uttarakhand, for duping a 54-year-old businessman from Koparkhairane of Rs 33.37 lakhs. He posed as a woman on a dating app and made the businessman pay for personal expenses by claiming it was needed for medical emergencies, college fees, etc.
Gajanan Kadam, Senior Inspector of the cyber crime police station, informed that the arrested accused is identified as Sanjay Meena, who hails from Rajasthan. He posed as a woman on the dating app 'Bumble' and communicated with the complainant using WhatsApp and Snapchat messages. He kept his display picture on WhatsApp as that of a young woman.
Between March and June last year, he chatted with the complainant and established a love relationship. Thereafter, he emotionally gained his trust and made him transfer money by claiming it was needed for medical emergencies, college fees, among other expenses.
The accused, Meena, hailed from Rajasthan. He had several girlfriends whose bank accounts he used to make the complainant transfer the money. He even used mobile SIMs of others to communicate with the complainant. However, using technical expertise and with the help of Google administration, we obtained an email address that Meena used to communicate with the complainant.
The email address gave a vital lead to trace him to Dehradun, and he was arrested on January 23. From the money he got from the complainant, Meena had purchased a car, four expensive mobile phones and a macbook. We have recovered the vehicle and gadgets along with 8 SIM cards he had used to communicate with the complainant.