Elderly woman falls for conman's 'love', loses Rs 94 lakh

September 8, 2016

Pune, Sep 8: If you think something is too good to be true, chances are that it probably is. A 64-year-old widow from the city learnt this lesson the hard way recently.

lovemoneyThe Chatushrungi police have booked a person named Harley Benson, who claimed to be from London, for allegedly duping the elderly woman of Rs 94.5 lakh after promising to marry her. The woman lodged a police complaint on Tuesday.

The suspect had befriended the woman, a resident of Model Colony, off Fergusson College Road on Facebook. Benson and she exchanged cellphone numbers and began sending SMSs and Whatsapp messages to each other in May 2016.

According to police, he professed his love for her a couple of months ago and promised to marry her. Benson won her confidence by claiming that he was willing to relocate to India.

As the woman's daughter is based in the US and her husband died in 2014, she lives alone in the city, police inspector U B Shingade said.

The woman was earlier employed as a teacher in a prominent research institute of the Union government and has now retired. police said.

On July 27 this year, Benson called her up and told her that he was shifting to Pune and was carrying gold and diamonds worth 95,000.

After a couple of days, he called her up again claiming that Indian customs officials had caught him at the Delhi airport and were demanding a fine for the gold and diamonds.

Benson claimed that he was not carrying a large amount of money and requested her to pay the fine.

The complaint said that Benson provided her a few bank account numbers and requested her to deposit money in them. The woman deposited Rs 94.5 lakh in the account numbers provided by him over some period. After receiving the money, he switched off his cellphone number.

Police said that the woman sold a piece of land to pay the money. Police have obtained details of the bank accounts and have launched a manhunt to trace the suspect.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
June 6,2020

Kota (Rajasthan), Jun 6: A 14-year-old boy allegedly hanged himself to death on early Saturday morning shortly after he stopped playing PUBG throughout the night and went to sleep, said police. 

Railway Colony police station’s in-charge Hansraj Meena said the boy, a class 9 student and son of an Army man, was found hanging from the grill of the ventilator in his bedroom on early Saturday morning. 

Meena said according to the boy’s family members, the boy had downloaded the gaming programme on his mother’s mobile phone only three days back but had been playing the game virtually continuously for the last three days. 

He kept on playing the game till 3 am in a room in which his brother was studying, said Meena, adding the boy went to adjoining to sleep after that. His body was found hanging from the ventilator’s grill in the morning, he said, adding the boy was rushed to MBS Hospital, where he was declared “brought dead”. 

No suicide note was recovered in the case, the SHO said. The boy lived in Gandhi Colony in the city along with his mother and brother, while his father, a Tamil Nadu native and Army man, is currently posted in Arunachal Pradesh. The boy’s body has been kept in hospital’s morgue for the postmortem, the SHO said.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
May 1,2020

Lucknow, May 1: Six members of a family were allegedly hacked to death by another family member over a property dispute in Gudauli village in the Banthra area on the outskirts of the city on Thursday, police said.

The accused, Ajay Singh (26), went to the local police station after committing the crime and surrendered, they added.

Singh allegedly had a heated argument with the family members over a property and attacked them with a sharp-edged weapon, the police said.

The accused allegedly killed his mother, father, elder brother, his wife and two children -- a son and a daughter -- they added.

The victims were identified as Amar (60), Ramsakhi (55), Arun (40), Ramdulari (35), Saurabh (7) and Sarika (2).

When asked, Commissioner of Police Sujeet Pandey said six members of a family were killed and the accused surrendered before the police.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
April 5,2020

Nagpur, Apr 5: A 23-year-old man allegedly committed suicide in Imambada area in Nagpur on Saturday due to financial distress, police said.

Nikhil Gavhane, who worked in a grocery shop, hanged himself as he had taken money from a person and was stressed over repayment, an official said.

"He was depressed since a week," the Imambada police station official said.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.