Things You Never Knew...

Since most of the people I know don't read the papers, here's something amusing from today's Straits Times. I mean, how dumb can people get? To quote the lady's husband, 'No sensible man will - without seeing her in person first - send so much money to a woman who claims she loves him and wants to marry him.'

(No pictures though, lexis ain't that advanced yet. Go take a look at the papers for yourself if you're interested in the great contrast - and yes, it's really quite a contrast)

She cheated US man on Net... ...by posing as this actress;
S'porean lured engineer with promise of marriage and tricked him out of $68,000

by Elena Chong

HE THOUGHT he was about to get married to a young beauty he had fallen in love with in an Internet chatroom.

Instead, US-based software engineer Mr Bharani Indran was cheated out of around $68,000 by a 36-year-old married woman, who had lured him into a long-distance relationship with fake pictures and promises of marriage.

Yesterday, Maliha Ramu was jailed for six months after pleading guilty last month to two charges of cheating.

She had befriended Mr Bharani, a 32-year-old Indian national living in the US, over the Yahoo Internet chatline in September 2004.

They began to keep in touch regularly, through chatlines, e-mails and phone calls.

Calling herself Sanjana Prakesh, Maliha had sent him pictures of Indian actress Gayatri Joshi, claiming they were of herself.

After two weeks, she asked Mr Bharani to be her boyfriend. He agreed, and shortly after, she promised to marry him.

In November that year, she asked to borrow US$19,175 (S$29,300) from him, saying her friend needed the money for a wedding.

He transferred the money to a POSBank account under the name of Maliha, who she said was her sister-in-law.

She promised to pay him back as soon as she could.

On Jan 19, 2005, Maliha lied to Mr Bharani that her mother had died, claiming she needed US$25,000 for funeral and other expenses. Her mother had actually died three years earlier.

She also used her mother's death as an excuse to call off the registry wedding they scheduled for Feb 18 in Singapore.

Feeling obliged to help her, Mr Bharani transferred US$15,400 to the same POSBank account on Feb 8 and another US$10,000 on March 4.

She promised to return the money by July, when she said her mother's assets would be released.

He became suspicious when she asked for another $10,000 in March that year. He made a police report here on May 7.

... [rest of story continues on talking about her trial and mitigating circumstances]

elena@sph.com.sg