Of late, like other cybercrimes, frauds through matrimonial websites are coming to the fore in the State.
In such an incident, an IT engineer was allegedly duped of Rs 24 lakh by a woman trickster whom he met on an Odia matrimony site.
The matter came to light after the victim, who hails from Jatni in Khordha district, lodged a complaint with the Cyber Police in Bhubaneswar.
As per the complaint, the woman posed herself as an Odia girl from Baleswar pursuing a medical course in California.
The accused, who introduced herself as Priya Gupta, pretended that she was caught at New Delhi airport as she was carrying 70,000 British Pounds.
She won the trust of the youth and made him pay Rs 24 lakh in several installments in order to pay for conversion charges to facilitate the release of the UK currency.
However, a police official said, ‘We appeal to people that no unknown requests should be accepted and thorough background checks must be done before taking any online acquaintance to a further level. Money transfers should be avoided.”