Fake marriage proposal
How it is done
A gorgeous woman wants to get to know you, with marriage in mind.
Conned
In a recent case, Indian national Bharani Indran, 32, a software engineer in the US, was fooled by a Singaporean woman he got to know through a Yahoo Internet chatroom in September 2004. They exchanged photographs.
But the woman, Maliha Ramu, 36, sent him a picture of a gorgeous Indian actress, and he asked to marry her.
A convoluted scam followed in which he wired nearly US$45,000 to her. Meanwhile, she kept postponing their marriage date. Mr Bharani finally grew suspicious when she asked for another US$10,000 in May 2005.
He flew here and reported the scam. Maliha was jailed for six months in March.
Tips
Stay away from love at first site – chatrooms or e-mail from Internet sites, that is.
Popularity: 18% [?]
