Mumbai Crime: Conman Charmed Women By Posing As Senior Govt Officer

Tanmay Goswami is a ladies' man, quite literally. The 41-year-old has been held by the Bangur Nagar police after he conned several women on the pretext of marrying them by posing as a senior government officer on a matrimonial website. Young, successful, 30-somethings fell for the charms of his online bio data and offline personality, and shelled out lakhs of rupees for him.

The police said that Goswami has several aliases like Rahul Sinha and Mahesh Gupta. They have taken him into custody from the Hyderabad Cyber Crime police on June 21. He was produced before the Borivli Metropolitan Magistrate court on June 22, and remanded in police custody.

Goswami used to target women who were single and successful in their respective fields, on a matrimonial site. After getting introduced to them, he would befriend the women through his smooth talking ways, live with them for a few months, wed them in temples and in the process, extracted money from them over excuses like buying a house or covering a huge loss in business, etc.

"We have registered the case under Sections 420 (Cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 406 (criminal breach of trust) and 34 (common intention) and 66 (c), (d) (the cyber law) and taken the custody of the accused from Hyderabad police," said a police official.

The Art Director

Goswami's recent victim was a 34-year-old Bollywood art director, whom he cheated of R18.5 lakh, on the pretext of buying a house to start a new life, after he married her at the Siddhivinayak temple. She met Goswami through a matrimonial site in May 2015. According to the police, Goswami posed as a Bengaluru-based, deputy commissioner of revenue intelligence. Citing business, he would travel to Mumbai to meet the woman and stay with her for a few weeks. Few months in, the couple got married at Siddhivinayak Temple and started living together in the woman's flat. He asked her for R18.5 lakh for investing in a flat from Kolte Patil Developers in Pune.

The woman handed him the money and would have squandered more, had she not known Goswami's true identity.

She was shocked when the Hyderabad police informed her that her 'husband' had another name and has duped a 31-year-old teacher of Rs 32 lakh on the pretext of marriage in Hyderabad. But the victim refused to believe them, until she met the victim in Hyderabad. She returned to Mumbai and filed an FIR against him.

The Engineer

According to Bangur Nagar police sources, during interrogation it was revealed that Goswami had duped a 31-year-old engineer from Navi Mumbai of R32 lakh, on the pretext of marrying her. She had saved the money to buy a house and start a new life after marrying Goswami, but he took all of it for buying a MHADA flat in Mumbai.

The woman met Goswami as Rahul Sinha, on the same matrimonial site, three years ago, when he posed as an Enforcement Directorate officer. Goswami used to come Mumbai and stay with the woman at her house.

According to the police sources, this woman also wouldn't have known he was a conman had the cops not approached her. They had checked his Call Data Records and found several numbers with whom Goswami was constantly in touch, and one of them was the Navi Mumbai's woman's number.

Corporate professional

Another number was of a 32-year-old Thane-based woman, who works with a private company. She was duped of around R1.7 lakh on pretext of marriage and purchasing a flat. This time around, Goswami posed as a Kolkata-based IRS officer named Mahesh Gupta.

Two wives

Goswami belongs to Kolkata. He is a professional conman, is married and has a kid. While his father is a retired government employee, his mother has a government job. His wife is also employed with a private company in Kolkata. He has another wife, who lives in Bengaluru. These two wives know their husband has a second wife, but are unaware of his life as a conman.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)