Vizag youth falls prey to a fake Facebook account of a ‘girl’, loses Rs 4 lakh

In yet another case of cybercrime in the city, Vizag police nabbed a man for masquerading as a girl with a fake Facebook account and swindling Rs 4 lakh from a youngster.

K Jagadeesh, 23, created a Facebook account under the name of Sandhya and befriended J Maheswara Rao of Vizag. The bond between them soon grew stronger as Rao fell in love with “her”. The youngster also believed the many lies of Jagadeesh, who posed as a 23-year-old girl.

Jagadeesh essayed stories of “her” family being mired in financial troubles to receive sums of money from Rao. After cutting off ties with him for a brief period, Jagadeesh again sought financial help from Rao and ended up swindling about Rs 4 lakh in total.

After realising that he was cheated, Maheswara Rao approached the cybercrime police in the city for help. Swinging swiftly into action, the cops traced Sandya’s account back to East Godavari-based Jagadeesh and took him into custody. They have registered cases under Section 420, 419 of the IPC and Section 66 (C) and 66 (D) of IT Act and sent him to remand.

Speaking to media, Mr Gopinath said, “Jagadeesh masqueraded as a girl and trapped J Maheswara Rao. Making sweet promises of marriage, he chatted with Rao for about a year. Later, Jagadeesh sought Rao’s financial help to help ‘her’ out of troubles and collected close to Rs 4 lakh. After receiving the complaint, we found that Jagadeesh, of East Godavari, created a fake Facebook account and uploaded fake pictures to cheat Rao. He has been arrested.”