Online affair costs Lucknow man Rs 1.92 cr as cyber fraudster dupes him posing as woman
A man in Lucknow made friends with a woman he met online and chatted over WhatsApp. However, it was a man who posed as a woman and duped the man of Rs 1.92 crore. The police discovered the information after probing the massive cyber fraud.
New Delhi: In this era of technology, where everything has come into our drawing rooms and smartphones, digital scams have become a rising phenomenon. Recently, a man in Lucknow fell prey to massive cyber fraud.
What happened in the case?
A man in Lucknow made friends with a woman he met online and chatted over WhatsApp. However, it was a man who posed as a woman and duped the man of Rs 1.92 crore. The police discovered the information after probing the massive cyber fraud. The police have arrested the accused, Imran Ghazi (34), a resident of the Mishripur Depot area, on Tuesday.
How was the victim trapped in the fraud?
The victim, Shalabh Pandey, filed a complaint on June 2, 2025, in which he said that the accused posed as Bhavika Shetty on WhatsApp. They conversed, and the scammer convinced Pandey to invest money in schemes which allegedly had high returns. Pandey trusted him and transferred Rs 1.92 crore to multiple bank accounts. He went to the police after realising that he had been scammed. The police registered a case at the cybercrime police station under provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and Section 66(D) of the Information Technology Act.
The confession of the scammer
According to the police, Ghazi confessed during interrogation that he obtained forged Aadhaar and PAN cards to open multiple bank accounts after his Axis Bank account was frozen. He was helped by a person named Shehzad in the process.
Out of the total money sent by Pandey, Rs 54 lakh reportedly passed through Ghazi’s accounts, and they saw transactions of around Rs 1.52 crore in a month. The police have also allegedly found fake identity documents from him and are trying to find other members of the racket.