Match. Date. Fraud: How Bengal Man Cheated 500 Women Of Rs 2 Crore

The year is 2011. Ranveer Singh, the new entrant in Bollywood, is out with his second film, Ladies vs Ricky Bahl. The film follows a group of women, who team up against Ricky Bahl (Ranveer), a conman, who has defrauded each one of them of lakhs of rupees under different identities and sob stories.

15 years later, in 2026, an eerily similar real-life case has surfaced, involving a man accused of duping over 500 women of nearly Rs 2 crore. The man has now been arrested by the Delhi Cyber Police. 

It's A Match! The Beginning Of A Fraud

Match. Date. Pretence. Fraud - four words that Anand Kumar, a resident of North 24 Parganas in West Bengal lived by. Kumar would match with women on dating and matrimonial applications by posing sometimes as a doctor, businessman, a film producer, or a lawyer.

Over time, he would establish an emotional bond with them, with a promise of marriage. In some cases, he also promised modeling assignments and admission into prestigious colleges.

Cheat Before Marriage

During the dating period, Kumar would come up with a sad story - medical emergency, business losses, family troubles - seeking financial help from his matches. Once the money was in, Kumar's character would cease to exist.

The 'Unmatch' Scam

The case came to light when a victim filed a complaint alleging that an individual linked to an Instagram profile named "Vaibhav Arora" had defrauded her of around Rs 7 lakh. The two matched on a dating app before shifting the conversation to Instagram and WhatsApp.

Arora promised her marriage and subsequently extorted money through various excuses. When the victim asked for a refund, the accused stopped responding. The Instagram user even claimed that "Vaibhav Arora" had died.

A special team was constituted to investigate the case. The probe began by scrutinising the accused's mobile number, social media accounts and financial transactions.

The investigation revealed that Kumar, pretending to be Arora, was a resident of West Bengal. The cyber police team carried out multiple raids in Bengal to arrest the accused.

Further inquiry into the case found that Kumar created multiple identities at a time to interact with women. He operated profiles under different names - Dr Rohit Bahl, Tarun, and Anand Sharma - and even used the name Shikha. He used multiple mobile phones and various SIM cards to evade police detection.

The police have recovered four mobile phones, eight SIM cards, three debit cards, as well as gold bangles and chains purchased with the proceeds of the fraud, from the accused. The accused spent a significant portion of the defrauded money on online gaming and funding his lavish lifestyle, the probe found.

The police stated that similar cases have previously been registered against the accused in both Delhi and Ghaziabad.

The cops are investigating to determine who else might be involved in this syndicate and to uncover the full financial trail of the defrauded funds.