PUNE: Bait of freebies from a virtual friend cost a 50-year-old widow from Karvenagar Rs 25.87 lakh last year.The person she befriended through a social networking site duped her on the pretext of sending her foreign currency, a costly wrist watch and garments between August and October last year. The woman waited for the parcel for the three months. When she realized she would never get the freebies, she approached the Alankar police and lodged a complaint against two persons — her friend in the virtual world and the conman’s woman aide — on Wednesday.“We have booked the duo under sections 419 (cheating by personation) and 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code and the relevant sections of the Information and Technology Act,” said inspector Vijaykumar Shinde of the Alankar police.He said the duped woman had been staying with her daughter. In August last year, she received a friend request from a man identifying himself as Edwin Morgan from the UK. “He had introduced himself as a builder from England,” the police inspector said.Shinde said the woman started chatting with him through the social networking website. After a few days, they shared their cellphone numbers. The woman and the suspect often called each other and were also in touch through the mobile messaging service.“Last October, the man told the woman that he was sending her a parcel containing a few US dollars, jewellery, garments and a costly wrist watch from London,” Shinde said.A few days later, a woman posing as an officer from the New Delhi Airport contacted the complainant and told her that her parcel had arrived from London and that she would have to pay Rs49,000 to release it from the customs department. The woman gave an account number to the victim and told her to transfer the amount. “The victim immediately transferred the money through Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS),” Shinde said.The next day, the woman faking as an airport officer contacted the complainant again and told her the airport authorities had confiscated the parcel after they found a huge number of US dollars while scanning it. The victim was asked to pay more money to get it released. “Within two days, the complainant transferred Rs25.87 lakh through RTGS to the bank account number given to her,” Shinde said.During that period, her virtual friend from London was in contact with her. When the victim did not receive the parcel, she tried to call the suspect and the woman. But they had disconnected their cellphones by then. “The woman waited for the parcel for three months and then lodged the complaint,” Shinde said.The police inspector said the victim was a homemaker. She was duped of the money she had received after her husband’s death.“We have traced the account to which she had transferred the money. It is with a bank in Delhi. Our probe is on,” Shinde said.PAST INCIDENTSMarch 2016 | A 51-year-old woman from Pimpri was duped of Rs 7.6 lakh by her social networking friend Prince Angelo from UK, who was supposed to fetch her a costly giftSeptember 2016 | A 64-year-old widow from Shivajinagar was duped of Rs 94.5 lakh by a suspect who claimed to be from London and promised to marry herDecember 2016 | Promising marriage, a conman duped a 31-year-old woman who worked at a software firm in Hinjewadi of Rs 1.65 lakh after befriending her on a matrimonial site