A 54-year-old man was arrested in Bhubaneswar on Monday for allegedly defrauding 14 women by marrying them and then fleeing with their money, said a senior police official.
According to Bhubaneswar deputy commissioner of police, Dr Umashankar Dash, the accused, Bibhu Prakash Swain alias Ramesh Swain, would target women on marriage websites, marry them, and then depart with their money while posing as a doctor or a high-ranking government employee.
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Swain married and scammed 14 women, according to Dash, including a high-ranking official in the Indo Tibetan Border Police and a lawyer in the Delhi High Court. Swain mostly preyed on women from Punjab, Delhi, Assam, Jharkhand, and Odisha. His primary targets were mostly middle-aged women and divorcees.
Dash said, “His only intention was to get money and acquire properties of the women after marrying them. He would reach out to women from states like Punjab, Jharkhand and Delhi through several matrimonial websites. The women he targeted, wanted emotional security as they either married late or were divorced and Swain took full advantage. Most of the victims are highly educated and hold key posts in various government and private sector organizations,”
Swain, according to authorities, has been deceiving women since 2002.
In July 2021, a school teacher from Delhi filed a complaint against Swain after learning about his prior marriages. In 2018, he married the teacher at an Arya Samaj temple.
Swain was arrested from a rented house in Bhubaneswar’s Khandagiri area on the basis of the complaint and charged under the Indian Penal Code’s Sections 498 (A) (husband or relative of a woman subjecting her to cruelty), 419 (punishment for cheating by personation), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating), and 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record).
