Facebook helps Ghaziabad police net cyber cheat

With help of Facebook, the Ghaziabad police have arrested a cyber cheat who defrauded an Ahmedabad-based woman of Rs.1.10 crore and recovered Rs.10 lakh from him.

The police said they received a complaint from the victim - Devika Manoj Shah, wife of Manoj Shah and resident of N-10, Vardhman Nagar, Ahmedabad (Gujarat) - who said she was lured by the Facebook friend who, later, turned out to be a cheat.

The cheat, Babloo, lured her via Facebook to a game in which he assured huge returns. Trusting him, she came to Ghaziabad in September and played the game in which she was shown winning Rs.3,000,000 (Rs.30 lakh).

The cheat showed 30 bundles of currency notes containing Rs.1 lakh each. When she asked him to hand over the bundles since she had won the game, he promised to give them to her but asked her to show an equivalent value.

The woman returned to Ahmedabad, sold her flat and brought the money. This time, Babloo insisted that she play further and now she was shown winning Rs.4,000,000 (Rs.40 lakh) and he again asked her to show a similar worth.

This way, he succeeded in getting Rs.1.10 crore from her. Whenever she demanded the money, he first ignored and later blatantly refused to return her own money besides also keeping the winning amount.

Upon his persistent refusal, Devika lodged a complaint at the Vijay Nagar police station.

"We spread a network and nabbed him with help of Facebook, recovered internet-enabled computing system, fake currency notes and plain paper bundles buffering original currency notes so he could project those as real money," said police officer Shiv Shankar Yadav.

Following interrogation, the cheat revealed his identity as Raghuvir Singh alias Babloo, son of Satpal Singh and resident of Uttar Pradesh's Ballia and living at present in Ghaziabad, added the police officer.