Bhubaneswar, Jan 20: A man has been arrested in Odisha for allegedly duping a person of more than Rs 3 lakh by creating a fake account in his wife's name on a matrimonial site, the police said on Friday.

The arrested individual has been identified as Nrusingha Biswal, a native of Bhatakudi in Puri district, Bhubaneswar DCP, Prateek Singh said.

Singh said that the cyber criminals are creating fake accounts on matrimonial sites, especially impersonating females looking for matches, and later targeting gullible victims registered on those sites to find out a good match to get hitched.

"The complainant while searching on the matrimonial site came across the profile of one Dipa Pradhan and soon started charting with her on WhatsApp from 18 May, 2023. After a few days, Dipa began asking money from the complainant under different pretexts like financial problems in the family and illness of her father. Accordingly, the victim gave her money through Google pay and other means on humanity ground. Whenever he tried to speak to Dipa through voice and video call, she would avoid him making various excuses. So, the complainant approached the police suspecting the person to be a fraudster," Singh said.

The accused Biswal, a Class 9 dropout, impersonating a woman, reportedly sought financial help from Panda by saying that her (Dipa's) father is a cancer patient and her bank account was blocked.

He had also sent a picture of a body identifying as her (Dipa's) father and the picture of an injured leg of a woman saying that she (Dipa) had a fracture in her leg.

The police during investigation found that the the account of Dipa Pardhan on the matrimonial site was being run by a male, who had created the account in his wife's name.

Police have seized Rs 1.61 lakh in cash and several ATM cards, and mobile phones from his possession.

DCP Singh said that police have sought details from different matrimonial sites to ascertain the number of persons cheated by the accused through these fake IDs.

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