LOVE, LOOT, LOGOUT

The heart wins over mind—and money—as a new online fraud targets women with fake matrimonial profiles

- By Arkamoy Datta Majumdar

IT COULD SCREAM A DIME NOVEL...'a chilling saga of deception, trust and heartbreak'. Or think of it as a runaway marriage between two eminently compatible forms of online behaviour: the pursuit of love, and of money. The cybercrime sleuths of Hooghly Rural Police first thought it was a routine case of online fraud. But they saw it had a pattern all its own: the victims missed as many heartbeats as they did hard dough. The first complainant, a 29-year-old woman from Singur, had been duped of Rs 43 lakh—by a man she met on a matrimonial website.

He called himself Anupam Roy, supposedly a wealthy rice mill owner from Bardhaman. The online acquaintance began last December: innocent at first, perhaps even hopeful, like many such modern-day matches.