A 'dinner date' with a Tinder match costs man Rs 1.2 lakh

An aspiring bureaucrat was extorted of Rs 1.2 lakh when he went on a “dinner date” with a woman he matched on the dating app Tinder, not knowing it was a well-planned plot to scam him. The man was luredto meet at Delhi's Black Mirror Cafe in the Vikas Marg area on the pretext of celebrating her birthday on June 23.

According toNDTV, they had ordered two cakes, four non-alcoholic shots, and some snacks. The date was going well until the woman had to leave urgently due to a family emergency. When asked for the check, he was shocked to see the amount written on the bill – Rs 1,21,917.70.

The victim argued with the cafe for the unreasonable amount as the food he ordered should have cost him only a few thousand normally. However, he was threatened and forced to pay the full amount, which he paid online to one of the cafe owners, Akshay Pahwa. After he left the cafe, he promptly filed a case with the police.

A team of four has been formed led by Inspector Sanjay Gupta to look into the case. The police took 32-year-old Akshay Pahwa, a resident of Shahdara in East Delhi, into custody.

During the investigation, he gave up information about the woman 25-year-old Versha, whose real name is revealed as Afsan Parveen. She also goes by the names Noor and Ayesha. She was on another "date" with a Mumbai man she met on Shaadi.com when police caught her.

The Black Mirror cafe is owned by Akshay Pahwa, Vansh Pahwa, and Ansh Grover. While Akshay and Vansh are cousins, Ansh is their friend. The other people involved in this sinister plot were the manager, Digranshu and the table manager, Aryan, a class 7 dropout. The money extorted from the victims gets divided between the players involved.

Aryan posed as Parveen and communicated with the victim on the dating app. Soon he invited him to the cafe to celebrate her birthday, where the victim met Parveen.

Parveen and Pahwa have been arrested by the police as the investigation continues. The cafe's register and their phones have also been impounded by the police. Measures are being taken to make further arrests of the people involved in the scam.

Cases of scamming men on dating apps have been on the rise in metropolitan cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Bangalore.

(With inputs from agencies)