Mumbai Interior Designer Duped of Rs 10 Lakh In Online Escort Service Scam, Woman Arrest
MUMBAI: A 31-year-old interior designer from Kurla was defrauded of Rs 10 lakh after responding to an online escort advertisement, leading to the arrest of a woman by Vinobha Bhave Nagar police. The suspect, identified as Natasha Dogra, faces charges including cheating, criminal intimidation, and criminal breach of trust under the BNS, along with violations of the IT Act.
The FIR states that the victim discovered an online link while surfing the internet, which redirected him to an escort services website. The platform featured images of multiple women accompanied by their names and WhatsApp contact details. After selecting one profile, he was connected to a WhatsApp chat interface where the woman requested Rs 500 upfront for an hourly session priced at Rs 3,500. She provided a QR code associated with a bank account, prompting the complainant to transfer Rs 500, subsequently followed by an additional Rs 600 upon her insistence.
The woman never showed up for the meeting and instead began offering various justifications, including being unwell. Police revealed that she then persistently demanded additional funds under different pretexts—covering transportation costs, her father’s medical crisis, hospital charges, expenses related to her mother’s funeral after an alleged death, and costs associated with property documentation in her hometown.
She assured the victim that she stood to inherit her parents’ multicrore property and would reimburse all payments. The complainant stated that she also claimed to have fallen in love with him to gain his confidence. When he indicated he could no longer afford further payments, she allegedly resorted to blackmail—threatening to share their WhatsApp conversation screenshots with his wife and file a fabricated rape complaint against him. Intimidated, he kept transferring money. Eventually, he disclosed the situation to his brother, who urged him to report the matter to authorities.
Acting on the victim’s complaint, police apprehended Dogra at Mira Road.