A Jharkhand man, Jafir Ansari, was arrested in Chennai for allegedly defrauding a person of Rs5 lakh in a matrimonial scam, police said on Monday. The accused posed as a representative of a matrimonial website to deceive the victim and steal money.
The incident came to light when the victim filed a complaint with the Cyber Crime Police Station (South). According to the complainant, Rs1,988 was automatically debited from his bank account on December 2, as part of the matrimonial site’s auto-pay feature. The victim became suspicious and tried to deactivate the feature by searching for the platform’s customer care number online.
After finding a contact number listed online, he called the number and received a return call. Growing more suspicious, the victim contacted his bank’s customer care to close his account. However, by the time he reached the bank, Rs5 lakh had already been withdrawn from his account.
An FIR was registered, and a police team led by Inspector Naveen Kumar tracked down and arrested Jafir Ansari. During the investigation, the police recovered several items from his possession, including 14 mobile phones, a silver bar, fake Aadhar cards, six ATM and credit cards, and a PAN card.
During interrogation, Ansari revealed that he and his associates had been posing as customer care representatives of the matrimonial site. They used manipulated contact numbers that appeared in online search results to deceive victims. Ansari and his team targeted users seeking assistance, sending malicious links and convincing victims to share their screen, thereby gaining access to sensitive bank account information, according to Assistant Commissioner of Police (Cyber), Priyanshu Dewan.
