Fraudsters with X factor

Illustration/Uday Mohite

For scores of people active on X across India, the last two months have brought forth revelations - and not good ones. Two users of X, still better known as Twitter, were the masterminds of mindboggling frauds that made news. Both are alleged to have extracted lakhs from users in the name of fundraising.

The first one, who went by the name Annie Thakur, claimed to run a non-profit for the welfare of stray animals and underprivileged children. This individual - now believed to be a man named Dilip Mandal - first created a detailed profile by using pictures of a random female Instagram user in various locations, coupled with photographs of stray dogs and children from marginalised families. Then, ‘she' upped the ante by posting videos, some on Metrorails, others in the gym. This created the perfect mirage of a socially conscious individual, before ‘she' got down to crowdsourcing funds. It worked. People donated by the thousands and experienced joy when ‘Annie' posted screenshots of their payments with heartfelt thank you messages, using imagined names for disadvantged children and strays.

In December, a few individuals smelt a rat because, no matter what the ‘cause', the UPI number where donors were transferring funds, was always in the name of Mandal. Soon, fact checkers got involved and, to the horror of many, reverse-traced all pictures and videos of ‘Annie' to another Instagram user. ‘Annie' disappeared within an hour.

The other fraudster identified herself as ‘Sanchayita Ruth Lenin'. She first built her profile, posing as an ‘orphan Adivasi vegan activist from Assam'. It pushed all the right buttons with the right people: marginalised, socially conscious, and advocate. She was gradually building a significant follower base.

Slowly, she kicked off fundraisers for the underprivileged. Next, the followers discovered that she was battling stage 4 cancer. She needed funds urgently for the treatment, and the donations came pouring in. Late last year, social media woke up to the news of Sanchayita's death, and mourned the loss of a kind soul for days. Till some of her friends discovered that she was alive. Today, the followers are wondering if she was any of the things that she claimed to be.

One of the people who had earlier helped Sanchayita with her fundraisers stated on her Instagram this week that she had filed a complaint. In cases of cybercrime, the police are unable to initiate suo motu action and hence, authorities always urge citizens to report the crimes on the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal, or at a police station.

mid-day spoke to victims of ‘Annie' and Sanchayita's fraudster charm.

The victim: Vansh Sharma, 38, hotelier from Goa
The con: Dilip Mandal alias Annie Thakur

I have long been a donor in fundraising drives on social media, because I like to do my part in helping others. The person claiming to be Annie contacted me via Direct Message sometime in October 2022, saying she was raising funds for an underprivileged girl's education. ‘She' shared a couple of documents with me that supported the claim. I made an initial donation, and then continued to contribute regularly to fundraisers for the various causes ‘she' supported. Over time, I noticed that ‘she' was getting more insistent. What struck me was she would put out tweets about crowdfunding but seek money individually via DMs. If there was already a crowdfunding drive on, why be insistent on DM?

I also got DMs from other ‘NGOs' who named Annie as a reference but as soon as I donated money to them, I was immediately blocked. So, I stopped contributing for a while although ‘she' would continue to DM, plead, and share screenshots of genuine UPI payments made by scores of people, tagging them even. They would in turn respond with their own tweets. So, it was very convincing, on the whole. Besides, ‘she' had built a detailed profile they had built with pictures and videos - rich content that had nothing to do with fundraising and indicated the normal life of a normal young woman.

When it came out that ‘Annie Thakur' was actually Dilip Mandal, I shared the details I had with the fact checkers who had exposed ‘her'. I wanted to add to the information already out there, so that others would not get swindled. Since October 2022, I must have paid close to R80,000 in varying amounts.

The experience has taught me to be more cautious but I won't stop donating to online fundraisers; I've seen some good come out of them during the COVID 19 pandemic. The worrying and infuriating bit is that ‘Annie' seems to be back on the scene under the name ‘Anamika Thakur', and ‘she' has now also added ‘nationalist' to ‘her' bio.

The victim: Tanvi D, 26, freelance copywriter from Mumbai
The con: Sanchayita Ruth Lenin

I met Sanchayita on the Clubhouse app, in a room that was debunking Savarna feminism and politics. In fact, it was on the same day she was also running a fundraiser for a trans community kitchen. Since then I have been impressed by her. More so because I don't come from academia, nor have I read political theories; she had an unquestionable command on this.

The reason I won't call them ‘tricks' - while it turns out she did trick us - was that she was known on the Internet for her politics as an Adivasi queer person from Silchar, who was also involved in sex work. For me, as a queer person, she was someone who shared knowledge that helped me understand myself; I'm sure there were many like me. The reason I say these are not tricks is because we remember hosting a silent protest on Clubhouse during Hathras [In September 2020, a 19-year-old Dalit woman was gang-raped by four upper caste men in Hathras district, UP. She died two weeks later]. She was vehemently speaking up.

I won't lie, I was hurt when I learned the truth. Because I used to fanboy over her. And she was always approachable if I needed any literature or political
reasoning. She was also very active in the queer community in terms of offering mutual aid. But, after the revelation about her faking so many identities including her father's death, which we collectively mourned on Clubhouse, I had a panic attack. Also, to speak from a queer perspective, I was angry as hell. I got to know about it one day prior to the story breaking on the internet, and I was not ready to believe it. It took me a day to process the truth and then realise how she had conned her way through this.

To be honest, I did contribute to a fundraiser even after this story broke. As a queer person, I know how community or mutual aid is so important, considering we don't have many resources at our disposal. There are many safety concerns as well, in terms of people getting doxxed or abandoned. So, I don't think I will be deterred [by this incident], but yes, I'm going to be extra cautious of those running [the fundraiser] and those amplifying it. Some support these informal fundraisers because major crowdfunding platforms charge a commission. There will be a need for some trust building to happen within communities. Because, to tell you the truth, most people who contribute to fundraisers, often come from marginalised backgrounds themselves.

Rs 80k
Amount Sharma paid to Dilip Mandal alias Annie Thakur