Fooled On Facebook: Woman Cons Techie Of Rs 6.5 Lakh In Odisha Capital

Bhubaneswar: Police have arrested a 26-year-old woman for allegedly duping a software engineer in the city of Rs 6.5 lakh by creating a fake profile on Facebook.

Police said the accused, Priyanka Priyadarshini Parida, is a Plus II dropout, butt impersonated as a medical student on Fakebook. Priyanka promised to marry the techie and took the money from him on the pretext of paying her course fees.

The youth transferred the amount to the accused’s bank account over a period of two months. Strangely, the woman and her victim had never met face to face during this time, police said.

Later, the victim felt something amiss and lodged a complaint at Saheed Nagar police station.

The law finally caught up with Priyanka when she was arrested on Friday from a hotel in Bhubaneswar’s Kalinga Nagar area.

Rs 1.33 lakh in cash, two mobile phones, ATM and PAN cards and three bank passbooks were seized from her possession.

During investigation, police found that Priyanka hailed from Nachuni village in Khurda district. But she had been staying at various hotels in the state capital for the past two years.

Modus Operandi

Police said this is not a solitary case and Priyanka has cheated at least seven youths across Odisha, Bengaluru, Sikkim and Assam by opening fake accounts with pictures of other girls on Facebook, WhatsApp and other social networking sites.

She then used these accounts to befriend youths and promise to marry them. She then took money from them on the pretext of her father’s treatment, paying college fees or some other issue. She, however, never met any of the victims, police said.