Man arrested for duping woman of ₹9L by promising her girl child for adoption

Police arrest con man who duped woman of ₹9 lakh promising legal adoption of a newborn, misused her documents to buy a motorcycle.

MUMBAI: The police on Thursday arrested a con man who duped a Kandivali woman of ₹9 lakh by promising legal adoption of a newborn. According to Samta Nagar police officials, the accused, identified as Sahil Abdul Hameed Sheikh, pretended to be an employee of an NGO and had promised she could adopt a newborn. In addition to cheating the victim, the man also misused her documents in order to buy a new motorcycle.

The complainant, a 46-year-old Kandivali East resident, is a nurse and has been working as a patient caretaker for decades. Officers said that the woman was unable to conceive despite trying during the span of her 15 years of marriage. She then decided to adopt a child. When she started asking around about the adoption procedure, one of her friends introduced her to Sheikh, who in turn promised the complainant that he would find a child for her to adopt through the NGO where he worked.

In November 2020, Sheikh called the complainant and told her that there was a girl child who was put up for adoption by her mother. Sheikh showed the woman a photo of the girl child and made the woman fill a form with her particulars and also took ₹1.5 lakh as processing fees. After a few days when the woman enquired, Sheikh told her the girl had died after she contracted Covid.

He then offered her another girl child who was living with her grandmother, who could not take care of the baby. The woman then gave Sheikh ₹7.5 lakh to be paid to the grandmother of the girl child for giving up the child. After stalling the complainant for more than a year, Sheikh stopped responding to her calls and messages.

In 2023, when the complainant failed to get the child through Sheikh, she realised that she was being cheated after she started getting calls from a loan-providing company telling her that she had missed the EMIs on the motorcycle she had bought. The police registered a case of cheating against Sheikh under section 420 of the Indian Penal Code based on the woman’s complaint. On Wednesday during a combing operation conducted by the police Sheikh was intercepted and found to be wanted by the Samta Nagar police for the past year.

“We have arrested Sheikh. However, when we questioned him about the money, he confessed that he had spent the entire amount,” said a police officer from Samta Nagar police station. The police produced Sheikh before the Borivali magistrate court where he was remanded to police custody.