Meeting people online is great but sometimes it can be extremely risky. Many social media users have fallen victim to scams and frauds online due to fake accounts. One such unfortunate incident took place in Gujarat, where a businessman got scammed out of Rs. 95 lakh by a 'friend' on Facebook.

Last October, Parag Desai got a friend request on Facebook from an account under the name Steff Mhiz. Out of curiosity, Desai accepted the request unknowingly initiating a scam. Desai reported the incident to the Cyber Crime department, revealing that the two of them started chatting on the platform regularly, which eventually led to sharing numbers and talking on WhatsApp.

During their friendship, Steff talked about a business idea of buying herbal products from India for her company. She offered him a lucrative deal of buying herbal products from India for Rs. 1 lakh and selling to her company for Rs. 2 lakh. Desai agreed to the deal in hopes of doubling his money. 

Steff instructed him to get in touch with Dr Virendra to buy the herbal products. Soon Desai started ordering from him and paying the Rs. 1 lakh amount. He did not open the boxes initially and just ordered according to the deal.

He soon started getting suspicious when Dr Virendra started asking for more amount, Desai tried to confront Steff and Dr Virendra but till then they were both nowhere to be found. Upon opening the packages, Desai was shocked to see nothing but powder and fried chips inside. 

This is not the first time; many cyber fraud incidents have been reported in recent months. A CA from Bengaluru was scammed when he tried to sell one of his kidneys online to pay off his debts. 

Also Read: CA tried to sell kidney to pay off debt, got scammed for Rs. 6.2 lakh

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