Andheri actor dupes of Rs 7L by a fraud posing as Ekta Kapoor

 An aspiring actor from Andheri fell in trap of a fraudster, who imposed himself as Ekta Kapoor, Balaji Telefilms head and duped the aspiring actor of Rs 7 lakh. The imposter contacted the victim through social media, Facebook by creating a fake account of Ekta Kapoor. In pretext of landing role in Balaji's new soap he duped Anjali Badhoria of Rs 7 lakh last month.

When she contacted Balaji office to check about the role, they told him that no such advertisement was made on social media. Balaji employee Pratik Sanghvi immediately lodged a complaint with the Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC) cyber police station on December 2.

"The fraudster created a fake Facebook profile of producer Ekta Kapoor and sent a friend invite to the victim. He made a false promise of a role in a telefilm under the Balaji Telefilms banner. The producer neither advertised nor made any friend request," said Sanghvi.

Investigators informed that Badhoria transferred funds from her account after the imposter communicated with her over Facebook chat and calls and told her about an opening in a telefilm. "Details have been sought from the bank to which she transferred the money. Also we are trying to get details if others also fell for the trap," said an investigator.

Additional commissioner of police (crime) K M M Prasanna confirmed a case has been registered under IPC sections for 419 (cheating by personation), 420 (cheating) and under the IT Act sections 66 (C) (identity theft) and 66 (D) (cheating by personation by using computer resource). Facebook has been asked to track down Kapoor’s fake page.

"Facebook users should be more alert because they have a tendency of disclosing everything about their personal profile on this site which is exploited," added Prasanna.