A 54 years old Odisha man who pretended to be a doctor has been found to have married as many as 14 women across the country while the money he defrauded ran into crores of rupees.
Investigators were stunned after they came across a long list of frauds the man had committed. Most of those who fell into the man’s trap was high-ranking working women.
The fraudster, identified as Ramesh Chandra Swain, who posed as a senior officer in the Union Health and Welfare Ministry in names like Bidhu Prakash Swain and Ramani Ranjan Swain, hails from Kendrapara district.
The man told investigators that he studied non-medical and laboratory technology at a Cochin-based institute and later graduated from an alternative system of medicine in Kolkata.
“All of his claims are under investigation. The speed with which the man managed to deceive people and swindle money, it is hard to believe what he is saying now is true. We would seek his custody and verify his claims,” said Umashankar Dash, Deputy Commissioner of Police, in Bhubaneswar.
His married life started in 1982 when he got married for the first time in Odisha. The man claimed that his three sons from his first marriage are general practitioners. Two decades later, Swain tied the knot for the second time. This time he managed to convince the doctor who currently serves as the chief medical officer of the corporate house.
“Between 2002 and 2019, the fraudster married 12 other women, mostly middle-aged and single, who were looking for companionship. The man’s only intention was to swindle money from these working women. The moment the women started suspecting him, he ran away from the spot,” the DCP said.
“In 2018, he married a woman who was a top official of the Central Armed Police Force in Punjab. He cheated ₹10 lakh from a woman. And the man also defrauded the ₹11 lakh Gurudwara where his marriage was solemnized. He has assured the Gurudwara committee that he will secure permission to set up a medical college,” said Mr. Dash.
Other women who were duped by the man included a Delhi High Court advocate and three teachers. Considering social status, most women were reluctant to be part of the case. However, the Bhubaneswar police contacted 10 women and obtained their statements.
“The last woman he married lives in Tezpur, Assam. The modus operandi is simple. He was posting his profile as a doctor seeking marriage on a matrimonial site. The man created a number of false documents to support his identity. Sometimes he would pose with a red beacon on his car to identify him as a very senior government official,” said Sanjiv Satpathy, one of the investigators.
Mr. Satpathy said, “although he was born in 1956, he always gave his year of birth as 1971. We learned from his WhatsApp chats that he was in contact with many more women.”
The police seized 11 ATM cards, four Aadhaar cards and a copy of a school report card from Bihar. Bhubaneswar DCP advised people not to blindly trust the profiles posted on various matrimonial sites for marriage.
In addition to marrying women, the man had a history of financial fraud. He was arrested by the Kerala Police in 2006 when he defrauded 13 banks in Ernakulam. He then impersonated a high-ranking official in the health ministry and availed a loan of ₹1 million. He was subsequently arrested in Hyderabad in 2010 for a ₹2 crore fraud. He collected the amount by assuring parents to provide MBBS seats to their wards.
