Indian uses net to dupe US $ 39,000 young woman living in US, pretext of marrying her

NEW DELHI, October 16 2004
IANS

The police are looking for a computer salesman here who cheated a Chicago-based Indian woman of $39,000 by posing on a popular matrimonial website as a US-based business consultant, officials said on Friday.

According to police officials here, Anasuya Mohan, an engineer from Delhi working as a systems engineer with Motorola at Schaumburg in the US, was cheated by Akhil Mukherjee, who befriended her on the Internet in March 2003.

Officials said Mukherjee, 30, who lived in Deshbandhu Apartments at Kalkaji in south Delhi, told Mohan he was a Chicago-based business consultant drawing a salary of $150,000 to $200,000 a year after establishing contact through the matrimonial website.

Mukherjee claimed to have lived on three continents -- Asia, Europe and now in North America -- and that he was a Green Card holder, officials said. He put off any plans of meeting Mohan, claiming to be at Hanover in Germany, where he was "attending a trade fair".

According to e-mails written by him, he had lost his father at a very young age, and was brought up single-handedly by his mother, officials said.

Mukherjee claimed to have studied at a boarding school in Shimla and studied at the London School of Economics before doing his masters at Stern School of Business, New York.

He also claimed to have worked with Goldman Sachs in New York for a few years before moving to Chicago, police officials said.

In further e-mail exchanges, he assured Mohan he was running his own business in Chicago under the name of Real World Services.

However, he kept postponing a meeting with Mohan in Chicago, first on account of official delays, and then on the pretext of his mother Sneh visiting him in Brussels for a conference.

On April 16, Mukherjee allegedly told Mohan that his sister and brother-in-law in Delhi had met with a serious car accident and that he and his mother had to leave for India immediately.

When Mohan called him on his Delhi phone number April 21, he allegedly told her that his sister and brother-in-law were admitted to Apollo Hospital with serious head injuries and that his sister had delivered a premature baby.

Police officials said Mukherjee also used the opportunity to propose marriage to Mohan.

On June 12, he said his sister had undergone a head surgery and that an American doctor from Chicago had been flown to India for further surgery.

Sending her photos of his "office" in Chicago, Mukherjee mentioned he was applying for American citizenship to bring his sister to the US for further treatment, officials said.

He also said the US authorities had frozen his bank accounts since he was out of country and they needed to verify his status.

According to police officials, Mohan immediately sent him $39,000 via Western Union transfer as well as directly to his bank account here.

Continuing with stories about his sister's health condition, Mukherjee kept postponing his trips to Chicago, and when on his insistence, Mohan and her parents made plans to visit India in January this year, he said that he and his family were flying out to Singapore that week and that they could not meet him.

Mohan and her parents returned to the US without meeting either Mukherjee or his family members. In mid-April, when Mukherjee claimed to have reached Chicago, he put off the meeting further by claiming he wanted to settle financial matters before meeting Mohan in person, police officials said.

Later, when Mohan and her parents contacted a maternal uncle Mukherjee had mentioned, named Shri Bal Kishan Sansi and living in Naperville near Chicago, they got to know that Mukherjee was a computer salesman who had never studied beyond Class XII, officials said.

According to officials, Mukherjee had never lived in Chicago or studied abroad.