Serial romancer held; widows, divorcees among victims - COIMBATORE

COIMBATORE: The city police have arrested a 41-year-old divorced man who allegedly used to browse the internet to identify and con widows and divorcees registered on matrimonial sites from Vedampatti on Wednesday.

The Madurai based man was picked up near the District Court complex in the city after one of his victims had lodged a complaint with the police accusing him of duping her and taking Rs 1.3 lakh on the pretext of medical expenses.

The cyber crime unit was monitoring his movement for the past few days. A woman police personnel was deployed as a decoy victim to lure him near the district court complex from where he was picked up and taken into custody.

According to police, Saravanaraman (41) hailing from Madurai has been employed with a private firm in Vedampatti for the past few months. He was divorced and was living alone near Vedampatti and used to browse the net especially matrimonial sites carrying profiles of widows and divorced women. He had created a fake email id to communicate with these women.
“He used to contact them through email initially and then took the relationship forward by exchanging phone numbers and maintaining phone contact,” said an officer from the cyber crime division involved in the operation.

After spending a few days with his victims Saravanaraman used to demand money from them citing various reasons including medical expenses or repayment of loans. He had allegedly taken 1.3 lakh from a city based woman employed with a private firm in this method and had later severed all contact with her.

The woman finally decided to lodge a complaint with the police. Police recovered three mobile phones with separate sim cards from the accused. Police claimed that Saravanaraman was arrested after it was confirmed that he was actually trying to entrap more women using the same tactics after monitoring his mobile phone records. However, only one of his victims has come forward and lodged a complaint against him with the police.