A civil service aspirant’s wish to find love on Tinder's popular dating app went terribly wrong after he was scammed of Rs 1.2L in the National Capital. When he swiped right on Tinder, he had no idea he was walking into a trap. Little did he know that he was walking into a sinister plot planned to scam single men looking for love on Tinder or other dating apps.
According to Delhi police, the victim had recently been matched with a girl named Versha. The girl called him to Black Mirror Café in East Delhi’s Vikas Marg area to celebrate her so-called birthday. At the café, the woman ordered some snacks, two cakes and four shots of non-alcoholic beverage.
The ‘date' was going well until Versha received a call and had to rush out to due a family emergency. The victim then finished the food alone and asked for the bill which left him stunned. He received a whopping Rs 1,21,917.70 bill for food that should not cost him more than Rs 1000.
When the victim disputed the bill, he was threatened and beaten up, forced to pay. Fearing for his life, the victim paid the money online that went to the café’s owner – 32-year-old Akshay Pahwa. Coming out of the café, he went straight to the cops and filed a case.
Shocking details later emerged during the investigation. During the investigation, Akshay who is a Class 10 fail revealed the modus operandi of their gang.
They have opened the café and use Versha, who also goes by the names of Ayesha, Noor and Afsan Parveen to lure men and then siphon off money from them.
Later, Versha was tracked down who was at another café on a ‘date’ with a man from Mumbai she had met on Shaadi.Com. Later, Versha revealed all the details to the cops. They catch up with men on dating and matrimonial apps and lure them to date.
Later, Versha feigns a family emergency and rushes out and her date is made to pay a huge amount in the name of the bill. Later, 15% of the money goes to Versha, 45% is divided among the table and café managers, and the remaining 40% to the owners.
Several such schemes are in play in Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad to extort money from unwitting victims, Delhi police said. Efforts are on to arrest other accused, the police added.