A WOMAN with a history of duping men into false promises of marriage to cheat them of their money posted a photo on a matchmaking platform to ensnare more victims.
Using her relative’s photo, Maliha Ramu fooled a 29-year-old Indian national living in Singapore into thinking she would marry him, and over a year, cheated him and his father of S$5,750 (RM18,200).
Her suitor caught on to the ruse when he found photos on Facebook that looked like the 25-year-old woman Maliha, 51, claimed to be.
On Tuesday, she was jailed for seven months after pleading guilty to cheating.
The court heard that Maliha, who lives in Singapore and was self-employed at the time, had created the fake profile “Keerthana” on matchmaking platform Tamil Matrimony, where she described herself as a single woman.
When her suitor’s 62-year-old father contacted her in hopes of finding a partner for his son in November 2018, Maliha told him to call a landline to speak to her “mother”.
It was part of her ploy to dupe the man into thinking she was genuinely looking for a partner.
Maliha actually lived alone and her mother died in 2002, Deputy Public Prosecutor Seah Ee Wei said.
When the older man called, Maliha pretended to be Keerthana’s mother and gave her approval so his son could contact Keerthana.
The suitor, who was 29 at the time, then began speaking to Maliha over the phone. She told him she worked as a counsellor at an army base in Australia.
When he requested that they chat over video, she said she was not allowed to use a camera phone because of where she “worked”.
Maliha sent him pictures, claiming they were of her. They were in fact photos of a younger relative who worked in the army.
Maliha, who was in Singapore the whole time, led him to believe that she would marry him upon her return from Australia in May 2019.
But she kept changing the return date, claiming she had duties overseas. At some point, she said she needed money to help her clients as a counsellor and asked him for help.He agreed and transferred a total of S$4,750 (RM15,00) to her over four occasions between December 2018 and October 2019, believing the money was for medicine and funeral costs for her clients.
Maliha also cheated the man’s father of S$1,000 (RM3,165), saying she needed money for her personal expenses. Instead, she used the money to pay off interest for a loan.
Maliha promised the suitor she would pay him back, and on Oct 4, 2019, transferred S$2,000 (RM6,300) from an ATM in Bukit Panjang Plaza to him. This made him suspicious.
He then found a Facebook account belonging to Maliha’s relative, and noticed a similar photo to the one “Keerthana” had sent him.
The DPP said: “The victim discovered this user was already married, and had posted that someone had impersonated her to cheat people.”
He then tracked down Maliha’s relative to a shop in Chua Chu Kang her family owns.
They confirmed that Keerthana was a fake profile and that the person in the photo was in fact Maliha’s relative, said DPP Seah, who sought a jail term of eight to 10 months. — The Straits Times/ANN
