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Lured by woman on matrimonial site, Bengaluru man loses lakhs in crypto scam
The police said the accused used a fake identity created on a matrimonial website to contact the Bengaluru man and induce him to invest in bogus cryptocurrency platforms.
The Bengaluru man believed he was in contact with Niharika Mandava, a United Kingdom resident from Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh. (Image generated using AI)
A Bengaluru man allegedly lost cryptocurrency worth lakhs of rupees after a woman he met through a matrimonial website gained his trust and lured him into investing through fraudulent cryptocurrency trading platforms, the police said.
According to the First Information Report registered on August 3, the alleged fraud began on October 27, 2025, when the victim contacted a woman who identified herself as Niharika Chowdary Mandava through a popular matrimonial platform. She allegedly introduced herself as a United Kingdom resident originally from Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh, and claimed to be employed with a logistics company.
The complainant told the police that the woman later contacted him via multiple WhatsApp numbers and gradually gained his confidence before encouraging him to invest in cryptocurrency through the websites mivonexchg.com and binzoex.com, which the police suspect are fraudulent.
Acting on her instructions, the victim allegedly purchased USDT (Tether, a digital token also called a stablecoin linked to the US dollar) through cryptocurrency exchanges including Binance, ZebPay and Mudrex, transferred the funds to his Trust Wallet, and later moved approximately 30,000 USDT to multiple cryptocurrency wallet addresses provided during the transactions.
The complaint states that when he attempted to withdraw his investment from the trading platform, he was asked to pay additional taxes and other charges. Despite making the payments as instructed, he was unable to withdraw the funds. He later realised that the platform was allegedly fraudulent, while the other website had also become inaccessible.
The police said the accused allegedly used a fake identity created on the matrimonial website to contact the complainant and induce him to invest in bogus cryptocurrency platforms. The funds were allegedly diverted to multiple cryptocurrency wallets, causing financial loss to the complainant and corresponding wrongful gain to the accused.
A case has been registered at the Whitefield cyber crime police station on charges of identity theft and cheating by personation of the Information Technology Act, and cheating and cheating by personation of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. Further investigations are underway.
© IE Online Media Services Pvt Ltd
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