Months after a woman from a business family in Delhi and living in Pune was defrauded of Rs 3.6 crore by a man who identified himself as an Australian citizen and with whom she met through a matrimonial platform, the Pune city police’s cyber crime unit arrested the accused from Mumbai airport on Wednesday.
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The accused, identified as Abhishek Sharadchandra Shukla—a 42-year-old film distribution businessman, arrived at Mumbai airport on a Singapore-Mumbai flight. He was detained by the Bureau of Immigration in response to a Look Out Circular (LOC) requisitioned by the Pune city police.
According to police, the accused, an Australian national holding an Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) certificate, allegedly impersonated as ‘Dr Rohit Oberoi’ and even faked his death from oral cancer as part of an elaborate scam that lasted over a year.
The woman, who divorced from her husband a few years ago, registered a case with the cybercrime unit of the Pune city police in mid-November last year. She had registered herself on the ‘divorcee’ section of a well-known matrimonial website. The complainant connected with the profile of ‘Dr Oberoi’ some time around mid-2023.
After initial contact, the fraudster identified himself as an Indian businessman of Australian origin and maintained communication with the woman. The fraudster promised to get married to the complainant and the two even met and spent time together at multiple locations in India, including Pune.
According to police, the fraudster soon found out that the victim had received Rs 5 crore alimony. When the victime shared her goal of building a programme on mindfulness and spirituality, the accused promised to scale her business to an international level and promised to get funding for her from his contacts in Singapore.
On the pretext of depositing money in escrow accounts, the fraudster manipulated the woman into making 12 large transfers, totalling Rs 3.6 crore, to accounts in Singapore and India. After a point, the fraudster said he had moved to Australia and had been diagnosed with oral cancer. He then stopped responding to calls from the victim.
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In September 2024, a person claiming to be a contact of ‘Dr Oberoi’ in Singapore said that Dr Oberoi had passed away due to cancer. When the victim confided about the sequence of events to a friend, she realised that she had been defrauded. She subsequently dialled the cybercrime helpline and an FIR was registered in November 2024.
A team from the cyber crime police station, led by senior inspector Swapnali Shinde, launched a probe and established the identity of the accused as Abhishek Sharadchandra Shukla. Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime) Pankaj Deshmukh said, “The accused who is an OCI card holder from Australia claims to have a PhD in business administration from an Australian university. We are verifying this claim.”
Suspect contacted 3,194 women through fake profile
Additional CP Deshmukh added, “Our probe has revealed that through the fake profile, the accused established contact with 3,194 women on matrimonial websites. We have reasons to believe that he has conned and defrauded more women in this manner. We are making an appeal to women who have been cheated by this profile to come forward.”
Senior inspector Shinde said, “We are also probing if the accused has any more accomplices. The women who had been cheated by this profile can contact Pune city cyber police station. We are also urging people to exercise caution on matrimonial platforms and extra caution before entering into any business or financial transactions with persons they meet through such platforms.”
