Woman loses Rs 23 lakh in hope of becoming crorepati

A housewife lost Rs 23 lakh in hope of getting a non-existent prize money of Rs 1.25 crore.
It turned out that the woman, Jyoti Radhakisan Chandiramani, was duped of Rs 23 lakh by a gang of five persons, police said today.
It all started in October last year, when the 52-year- old housewife from Ulhasnagar got an anonymous phone call telling her she had "won" Rs 1.25 crore in a popular game show, said Inspector M N Satdive of Hillline Police Station.
To get the "prize" money, she was told by the caller to deposit certain amount in a particular account of a bank in Ulhasnagar to meet certain obligations.

After depositing the first instalment, she got several such calls and an unsuspecting Chandiramani kept on putting money in the account. In all she deposited money 62 times. Recently, the woman realised she has been taken for a ride, but by that time she had lost Rs 23 lakh, Satdive said.
Chandiramani, who lives with her daughter-in-law while her son works in Belgaum, filed a police complaint after which a probe was launched.
Police have identified the cheats as Vishal, Anand, Iqbal, Amit Kumar and Vicky Malhotra, all booked under relevant sections of IPC and IT Act.
Efforts were on to trace and arrest them, he said.