Hyderabad: A 35-year-old conman has been arrested for marrying as many as 13 women from the two Telugu states and defrauding them of lakhs of rupees in the last four years. According to the police, Adapa Shivshankar Babu from Guntur district preyed on divorcees from wealthy families by pretending to be a software engineer from a reputed IT firm earning lakhs of rupees.
The notorious conman would scour several matrimonial websites for divorced women from wealthy families, marry them, and then defraud them of money and other valuables.
“He would claim that his parents died a long time ago and showed the women fake divorce papers. His parents are alive and well in his hometown. He began conning women in 2018 after losing money in business and incurring massive losses. During the marriage, he would take the cash and gold and mortgage the valuables for cash," Madhapur ACP Raghunandan Rao said.
Several victims have approached police stations in Cyberabad, including Sangareddy, Kukatpally, Gachibowli, Chandanagar, RC Puram, Balanagar, and Raidurgam, as well as Vijayawada, Guntur, and Anantapur in Andhra Pradesh, to file a complaint against the conman. Babu’s arrest came a week after eight of the victims gathered at the Hyderabad Press Club to speak to the media about their ordeal after being duped by the same man. One of them then filed a complaint with Ramachandrapuram police, alleging that Babu had taken Rs 25 lakh in cash and Rs 7 lakh in gold from her in the name of marriage and was refusing to return it.
The victim complained that she met Babu on a matrimonial website last year and that he was a software engineer earning a monthly salary of Rs 2 lakh. He disclosed to her that he was divorced and seeking a compatible wife.
After getting married to the victim, he convinced her parents to give him Rs 25 lakh under the guise of taking her to the United States. However, the victim’s parents began requesting that he return the money as there were no indications that he would be travelling to the US. When Babu was ignoring the victim, she and her parents approached the Ramachandrapuram police.
To their astonishment, they discovered that Babu had already been married when the police called him into the police station for interrogation. The accused arrived at the police station with a woman who served as his surety and assured the officers that he would repay their money.
Following a preliminary investigation, the police discovered that Babu had also defrauded a Hyderabadi woman living in the US out of Rs 35 lakh. The police registered a case under Section 420 (cheating) of the IPC against the accused.
