Mumbai:
He gets in touch with wealthy spinsters through matrimony sites, impresses them by portraying himself as a flourishing businessman with a lavish lifestyle, promises to marry them, and after winning their trust, trumps up grave-sounding reasons to ask for lump sums of money, and makes off with the cash.
But the latest victim of Vicky Nambiar alias Byju VC,40, the alleged conman, saw through his game and approached the police, who have been trying to nab him for the past seven months, officials said. The findings came to the fore in April this year, when his 38-year-old fiance, Mayuri (name changed) complained to the Juhu police after being duped by her fiance to the tune of Rs 2 lakh. After the police began their investigations, they learnt that the man had duped several women using the same confidence trick. In spite of tracing his location, cops have not been able to nab him.
The engagement According to police officials, Mayuri, a former principal of a Juhu-based junior college, met Byju through a matrimony site on April 3. During the course of conversation, Byju told Mayuri that he was a resident of Bangalore and owned a garments business. On April 6, the couple met in a coffee shop in Juhu, and decided to get married. "I took Byju to my house and introduced him to my parents and brother. He told us that he wanted to get married soon, so we fixed the date of marriage and exchanged rings," said Mayuri.
Some days later, Byju phoned Mayuri and told her that he had finalised a business deal in Mumbai and sent Rs 5 lakh with one of his employees to close it, but the employee had fled with the cash. Byju then asked Mayuri to arrange for Rs 2 lakh or else he would have to suffer a loss. Mayuri, about to get married to the man, agreed and sent him the cash she had saved for their wedding.
'Need more cash'After a few days, however, Byju called her again, and told her that he was admitted to a Pune hospital. He said that he had been beaten up by the employee who had made off with the cash after he caught him in Pune. He asked Mayuri to transfer Rs 15,000 to his account for the treatment.
"That is when I got suspicious, as Byju did not allow me to visit him. So I told him that instead of transferring the money, I'd pay the medical bills myself," said Mayuri.
Since that day, Byju stopped contacting her, and stopped answering her calls. Realising that she had been duped, Mayuri approached the Juhu police and registered a complaint against him. Sources at the Juhu police station said that after they obtained Byju's call records, they discovered that he had been talking to multiple women.
"The accused targets single women between the ages of 35 and 40 years, who are earning well, through matrimony sites," said a police officer. Cops traced Byju in Bangalore but have not been able to arrest him.
Arun Bhagat, senior police inspector of Juhu police station, said, "Byju's phone has been traced, but we are looking for other evidence as his phone remains switched off for a couple of days in a week. We would arrest him as soon as we trace his exact location."