Delhi: Man who cheated 50 women with marriage promise caught after 5-year chase | Latest News Delhi

Tired of his “boring” life during the Covid-19 lockdown, a 38-year-old man abandoned his wife and three children and established a string of fake identities in order to cheat dozens of rich women on matrimonial websites, often by posing as a senior officer working at the Union home ministry, police said Thursday.

The man – identified by police as Mukeem Ayyub Khan – allegedly cheated at least 50 women across six states and managed to evade the police for nearly five years. He was finally arrested by Delhi Police’s crime branch near Nizamuddin railway station on Thursday.

“The team had searched all his possible hideouts, but it was in vain as he kept continuously changing his position and committing crimes. The team kept technical surveillance on him for months and found that he was coming to Delhi on a train from Vadodara. A team followed him and arrested him near the railway station. He told us that he was married in 2020, but left his family after he got bored of his lifestyle. He first made a fake account on a website and then created multiple accounts,” said Sanjay Sain, deputy commissioner of police (crime).

Khan had created at least 20 fake IDs on the two biggest matrimonial websites in India, Sain added.

“He would only target rich women who were mostly widows or divorced. He posed as a senior government officer and would trap these women. He would also fake stories of his ex-wife dying and told them that he needed money to take care of his daughter. He would show them photos of his daughter to further his lie,” DCP Sain said.

His pattern of trapping the women was simple – he would get in touch with vulnerable and rich women on matrimonial websites where he would court them for two-to-four months. He would also meet the parents of his target, police said.

“After the wedding would get arranged, he produced fraudulent bills of hotels, marriage hall, travel, and jewellery, and would take the money from the woman and her family,” said an officer privy to the case investigation.

The officer cited above said added that Khan got married thrice and then cheated and abandoned his wives. He has three children from his first marriage, which took place in 2014.

However, in 2020, police said he got “bored” with his lifestyle when he was unemployed during to the Covid-19 lockdown.

While he had duped multiple women, police were finally able to establish his network of crimes when he targeted a judicial officer in Uttar Pradesh earlier this year. She alleged that the accused made her book airline tickets, hotels, and marriage hall and made her pay for gifts and jewellery in the name of wedding preparations but fled on the day of the wedding.

“He first duped a woman in Gujarat and left his wife. He married the other woman and then cheated her of ₹30,000 before fleeing. Once, he cheated a woman by making her pay for a new motorcycle and then fled on the same bike when it got delivered. In 2023, he again got married to a woman in Preet Vihar. The woman is a widow and she complained that he cheated her of lakhs… We think he was coming to meet his relatives (who stay in Shastri Park) after he had duped another victim in Gujarat,” added the officer.

The investigators found that Khan would make the women buy expensive watches, clothes, mobile phones, and jewellery for him ahead of their scheduled wedding.

He would generally make an excuse that his ATM cards or bank account were frozen, said the police. Police said he is now being interrogated to ascertain the “level” of the scam and the total amount of cheated money.