Fake astrologer
A case has been registered under the Information Technology Act and Section 318 (cheating) of the BNS at the Shankarapuram police station on May 21.
A senior police officer said the complainant had not met the accused in person and all the conversations and payments happened online. “Efforts are on to trace the accused. People should be cautious about fake advertisements on social media platforms. No payments should be made without meeting the person,” the officer added.
61, a resident of Shankarapuram, south Bengaluru, his ordeal began on March 9, 2025, according to the complaint filed by Panduranga AN. Later, Murali provided him with a bank account number to which the victim transferred Rs 5 lakh between Oct 14 and Nov 27 last year, as instructed by the fraudsters. Soon after, another person, identifying himself as Mahesh Bhat, contacted him and demanded an additional Rs 5 lakh to solve his problem.
Bengaluru: A senior citizen seeking relief from family problems lost over Rs 8 lakh to a gang of cyber fraudsters – identified as Murali NS, Veda Murthy, and Mahesh Bhat – posing as astrologers who convinced him that his family was suffering due to black magic and promised him to rid the evil spells through rituals over a year ago.
Murali later claimed to have studied the complainant’s horoscope and allegedly told him that someone had performed black magic on his family, causing constant problems and preventing progress in life. Exploiting his fears, Murali assured him that they would “remove the spell” and demanded Rs 10 lakh. After realising he was cheated, he filed a complaint recently. He clicked on a Facebook advertisement and later, got a call from a man identifying himself as Murali from “Rayara Jyotishya Phala Kendra. As Panduranga shared the problems faced by his family, Murali collected the horoscope details from him. The accused reportedly assured him that the black magic issue would be resolved within a month. However, when the complainant later tried contacting them, his calls allegedly went unanswered.