FAKE FRIENDSHIP CLUB DUPES MAN OF ₹57 LAKH

MUMBAI: A 70-year-old Mulund resident has lodged a complaint with the BKC cyber police station after he was defrauded by a friendship club-cum-fake police gang to the tune of ₹57.50 lakh.

The complainant, a resident of Mulund (east), on March 15 this year first received an SMS, providing a contact for “local friendship”. Two days later when the complainant called the number, a person called Vishal picked up the call and introduced himself as an employee from Sapna friendship club. He told the elderly person that he would have to pay a fee of ₹3,000 for joining the club.

The 70-year-old paid the fee and later received a phone call. During the conference call, he was allowed to talk to a woman. The woman then offered the senior citizen to avail the service of “close friendship.” She spoke to him and told him that the close friendship also includes full body massage, to which he told her that he was not interested and disconnected the call, stated the police complaint.

A few days later the complainant received a call from a man identifying himself as one Dharmendra who asked the complainant to pay ₹9,000 to close the membership of the friendship club. The complainant told the person that he doesn’t have money and asked him to close his membership.

According to the police, on March 31, the complainant received a phone call from one Vikram Rathod, claiming to be a police sub-inspector from Nagpur police. Rathod told the victim that a woman from Sapna Friendship Club has made a molestation complaint against him. Rathod offered to close the case if he paid him ₹97,000.

“The complainant then transferred the money to Rathod but he kept on demanding more money from the under one pretext or the other like security deposit, refund processing fee, etc. and eventually extracted a total of ₹57.50 lakh from the elderly citizen,” said a police officer.