MUMBAI: A 74-year-old Cuffe Parade resident was cheated to the tune of ₹50.8 lakh by a cyber fraud who posed as a doctor from New Zealand and claimed to be working with the United Nations (UN) peacekeeping force in Yemen. The police said the fraud befriended the senior citizen through social media and asked for the money claiming he needed it for emergency surgeries to save the life of his minor daughter.
According to the south cyber police, the case has been registered based on a complaint by the victim, a Cuffe-Parade resident, who lost her husband in July 2024 and lives alone. The police said the woman’s expenses are taken care of by the investments made by her husband.
The police said the fraud began in the first week of January, when she met an unknown man on social media. The man identified himself as Joshua Willian and claimed to be a doctor from New Zealand working for the UN. He told the elderly woman that his wife and mother had died and that he stays with his five-year-old daughter.
After chatting for some time, they exchanged their mobile numbers and soon started talking on the phone. During one such conversation, the man told the woman that he was posted in Yemen for peacekeeping duties, said a police officer.
“At one point, he called her and informed her that his daughter Maya and several other children had suffered food poisoning after eating a birthday cake and some of them had died. Luckily, he said, Maya survived the episode but was in a critical condition and needed an urgent surgery to save her life. He told her that he was unable to pay the money as he was out of his country and in a low network area,” said the police officer.
After his repeated requests, the woman sent him a total of ₹50.8 lakh in 27 online transactions between January 5 and February 3 this year, said the police officer. The officer added that the woman believed that the man was facing a difficult time and often asked about his daughter’s health. He even told her that he would return her money when he came to India after his peacekeeping assignment in Yemen was over.
On February 9, the fraud called the woman again and told her that there was a surge in typhoid cases where he had been posted and he was infected but had no money to treat himself. He asked her to send him more money, but since she had run out of her savings, she asked her son for help.
The fraud came to light when her son asked her why she suddenly needed money and she narrated the entire episode to him. He immediately realised that she had been defrauded and asked her to report the incident to the police.
Based on the woman’s complaint, the police have registered a case against the unknown fraud under sections 318 (cheating), 319 (cheating by personation) and 61 (criminal conspiracy) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and relevant sections of the Information Technology Act.