BTech dropout poses as woman, swindles Rs.45 lakh from Facebook friend

Hyderabad: An engineering dropout, who pretended to be a woman and duped another man of Rs.45 lakh after befriending him on Facebook was arrested by the Hyderabad Cybercrime Police on Wednesday.

Mothe Ashok, 28, a native of Nuzvid in Krishna district, created an account on Facebook using the name Indhusha Tummala. After checking a few profiles, he send a friend request to Praveen, a businessman from Jubilee Hills, who accepted the request believing the account was of a woman. Over a period of time, Ashok and Praveen had conversations on Facebook Messenger.

“Ashok then installed a voice changing app on his mobile phone and started talking to Praveen regularly. He even sent a couple of pictures to the victim to avoid suspicion,” City Police Commissioner CV Anand said.

On different instances, Ashok asked Praveen to send money to him, citing different requirements.

“On one instance, he took Rs.3 lakh on the pretext of college fees while another time, he took Rs.10 lakh saying it was for his mother’s Covid-19 treatment and on one instance, took Rs.15 lakh saying he had got Covid,” Anand said, adding that finally Praveen grew suspicious and approached the police.
The police then tracked down and arrested Ashok and recovered around Rs.2 lakh from him.