Gold digger on net dupes NRI of Rs 13 lakh

KENDRAPADA (Orissa): At least eight persons, including a female software engineer, have been booked in Orissa for cheating a non-resident Indian (NRI) of Rs13 lakh by making false promises, the police said on Thursday.

“The police have registered criminal cases against software engineer Kaveri Patra, a resident of Mulabasanta village in Kendrapada district, and seven others including her father, husband and father-in-law on the charge of cheating and committing a cyber crime,” officer in-charge of the local Pattamundai police station KC Mallick said.

Jitendra Kumar Nayak, 27, a native of Ainipara village, located at a distance of about 35 km from Mulabasanta village in the same district, said he had been working in Dubai since 2003 and registered with a leading matrimonial site to find a life partner.

He received marriage proposals from several girls and after evaluating them, zeroed in on Kaveri Patra, 25. Kaveri was working with an IT firm in Kolkata.

The two became friends around June last year and exchanged many e-mails subsequently. Jitendra alleged that during their friendship Kaveri urged him to pay for her father’s heart surgery, her mother’s treatment and also asked for money to start a new college in her village. She got funds from him regularly and said she would return the money soon, he said.

In her e-mails, Kaveri would allegedly request him to send money in her name as well as her company associates’ names through online money transfer agencies like Western Union, UAE Exchange and State Bank Core Banking.

In this manner, Jitendra claims to have given Rs13 lakh to Kaveri till October 21, 2007. Though she promised to repay the money within two months, she is yet to repay even a single paisa, Jitendra alleged in his complaint.

Jitendra further alleged that Kaveri married someone else, in January this year —  something he found out through his contacts in Orissa. Both Kaveri and her husband are now working in Kolkata, he claimed.

Police booked Kaveri and her relatives on Wednesday after the National Human Right Commission directed the state government to submit a detailed report about the cyber crime.