victim

US national

Kalyan resident

Nigerian fraudsters

Khadakpada

A 38-year-oldhas been allegedly duped of Rs 2.53 crore by a gang of, who used a woman to befriend him on Facebook and then trapped him with the bait that he could eventually lay his hands on $1.8 million if he followed all instructions.Swapnil Dhamankar, who works as a senior visa officer with the Royal Thai Consulate, ended up selling his house and wife’s jewellery, liquidating his fixed deposits and LICs, and even borrowed money from people in his bid to get hold of a certain chemical and powder that could have helped him “process” the dollars that came to him smeared in some black taint.While the deceit started in August 2017, Dhamankar approached thepolice recently after realising that he had been duped. An FIR was lodged in the case on Thursday.According to Dhamankar, who used to stay with his wife Amruta, son Abhinesh and daughter Sanskruti at Mahavir Heights in Wayle Nagar, Kalyan, it all started with a woman sending a friend request to him on Facebook. “In August 2017, I received a friend request from this woman called Maryiam Khurshid. She said that she was a US national but was staying in Iran and needed help from me. After I accepted the friend request, she told me that her husband, who used to work with the US Army, died in a war, after which her brother-in-law forced her to shift to Tehran. She claimed that she had a 12-year-old son and that her brother-in-law was pressuring her to marry him. She also told me that she had her husband’s savings of 18 lakh US dollars ($1.8 million) and wanted to safeguard it,” Dhamankar said.Maryiam, Dhamankar added, told him that she wanted to shift to India with Dhamankar’s help and would first send the US dollars to him so that they could start a joint business once she reached the country.“In August that year, I received a call from a person who identified himself as a customer officer and asked me to pay Rs 6,80,000 for customs tax, anti-terrorist code and transport charges for getting the dollars that were being sent by Maryiam in a box. I sent the money to a bank account given by the customs officer. In September, a person, who identified himself as Jons Scotton, called me to say that he had reached Mumbai and was on his way to Kalyan to deliver the box,” Dhamankar said.That midnight, a Nigerian reportedly reached Dhamankar’s home and delivered the box of dollars. “I opened the box to see sixteen bundles of dollars, but they had turned black. The man said that a chemical could retrieve their original colour. He was also carrying a bottle of the said chemical, but it was broken. He told us that we could purchase the chemical on our own, but it would cost Rs 15 lakh for half a litre. With a little liquid that was left in the bottle, he turned five dollars into new ones,” said Dhamankar.Dhamankar and his wife then travelled to Hazrat Nizambuddin Station in Delhi and paid Rs 15 lakh to Scotton to get half a litre of the liquid. The family was then allegedly contacted by another person called George Kara, who told them that the half-litre bottles were out of stock and that they will have to pay another Rs 15 lakh to get a 1-litre bottle and Rs 10 lakh for a powdery substance to “charge” the chemical. Dhamankar did as he was told.However, the Dhamankars didn’t know how to use the chemical to treat the dollars and waited till November, when another person called Khallu Technician approached them, claiming that he could clear the black taint from the notes with the help of two 100 US dollar notes. He also asked the family to get at least 100 such notes.“We then sold the flat where we used to stay for Rs 41,50,000 and transferred the money online to the bank account of Kara, who sent Khallu Technician to us with three bundles of dollars. He did something with the notes and kept the black-coloured dollars in my fridge and asked us not to touch them as they were in processing. But when we checked, the dollars didn’t change colour,” said Amruta, Dhamankar’s wife.The family got in touch with Maryiam. She apparently promised to come to India and asked the family to transfer Rs 1 lakh to her bank account for her flight ticket as she didn’t have money.The Dhamankars again fell for the trick and transferred the amount to her bank account. “But when they tried to contact her, they found her number to be switched off. So were the other mobile phones that were used to approach them,” said Balasaheb Kadam, senior inspector, Khadakpada police station, Kalyan.Apolice team will be soon leaving for Delhi as most fraud gangs operate from there.