Dating scam: Man duped to pay ₹ 1.2 Lakh bill at Delhi cafe
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New Delhi: A man in Delhi found himself in a sister plot when he went to celebrate the birthday of a woman he met on a dating app recently, NDTV reported.
The civil service aspirant whose details are not known met Versha on Tinder recently and went to the Black Mirror Cafe in East Delhi's Vikas Marg area that day.
They ordered some snacks, two cakes, and four shots of a non-alcoholic beverage. At some point into their meet, Varsha said she had a family emergency and left.
Shortly later, the waiter brought him a fat bill that said he owed the cafe a staggering ₹ 1, 21,917.70 for food and beverage where it should have been a few thousand.
When the victim questioned about the bill, he was threatened, confined, and forced to pay.
He had no choice but transfer the amount to the account of one of the café’s owners Akshay Pahwa. The 32-year-old is a resident of Shahdara in East Delhi.
When the victim went to the police afterwards, a team led by Inspector Sanjay Gupta set out the probe and took Pahwa into custody.
He told the police that café is owned by him and two others: Ansh Grover and Vansh Pahwa.
It is revealed that Versha, who is originally 25-year-old Afsan Parveen, also goes by names including Ayesha and Noor.
Police tracked her down at another café on a "date" with a man from Mumbai she had met on Shaadi.com.
Revealing the modus operandi of the gang, Parveen reportedly said that Parveen's photo was shared to the victim in the one-time view mode, posing as Versha.
He was then invited to the café to celebrate her birthday, and in the midst of their meeting he feigned a family emergency and left the place.
Each player gets a share of the money from the bill slapped on the victim with Parveen baggin 15 per cent, 45% is divided between the table and cafe managers and the remaining 40 percent goes to the owners.
It is reported that many such schemes are employed to cheat unsuspecting men of money in metro cities like Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore, and Hyderabad.
If the victims refuse to pay, they would be threatened, beaten, or kept in confinement until they comply.
A lot of people would not approach police because of social stigma, according to the police.
