A woman was allegedly duped of Rs 1.46 lakh by a person she befriended on a social media platform in a customs fraud case, officials said on Wednesday.
The woman was asked to make mandatory payments to fraudsters posing as customs department officials to receive a gift from abroad, they said.
According to the police complaint, the woman became friends on Instagram with a man, who claimed that he lived in Europe and wanted to learn Hindi.
Some days later, the man said he wanted to send her some gifts from his country. Even though she refused, the man said that he had sent the gift and it will arrive soon, she said in the complaint.
After this, the woman got a call but she could not understand the language of the caller. The woman, then, received a message saying a package from one "Calais Eric" would be arriving for her at the Mumbai International Airport.
"It was also said that the package is ready for delivery. For this, the customs department will have to pay Rs 50,000 as clearance fee. When I refused, I was told that it could not be returned. After depositing the clearance fee, Rs 96,000 were demanded in the name of insurance and income tax," the complainant said.
After she deposited the amount, they demanded Rs 1.70 lakh more. This is when she approached police, the woman said in her complaint.
Following the complaint, an FIR was registered under relevant sections of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) at Cybercrime (south) Police Station on Tuesday. A senior cyber police officer said that they are investigating the matter.
