Mumbai: AI used to identify, trace conman to Varanasi

In a significant breakthrough in the use of advanced Artificial Intelligence AI technology to nab criminals the Bangur Nagar police have arrested a man from Varanasi who allegedly duped a 31yearold woman he met through a matrimonial site of lakhs of rupees after promising to marry her The accused has been identified as Sunil Kumar Prajapati 36According to police sources Prajapati gained the trust of the woman by promising to marry her and over time began extracting large sums of money before cutting off all contact and blocking her phone number The police leveraged AIpowered tools such as PimEyes a facial recognition search engine and Reverse Image Search to trace Prajapatirsquos digital footprint These tools allowed investigators to match online images and identify his real identityAccording to Bangur Nagar police the 31yearold complainant is working as a security guard and got married in 2006 but parted ways with her husband due to frequent disputes She has a 12yearold daughter By 2021 the complainant and her daughter moved in with her parents at Goregaon She decided to consider marrying again and registered with a matrimonial site at her parentsrsquo insistenceWhen the woman came in contact with Prajapati he introduced himself as a married man whose wife had allegedly left him and said he was looking for a second marriage The two got acquainted exchanged contact numbers and began speaking regularly through WhatsApp texts calls and video calls Over time they decided to get married Meanwhile under various pretexts Prajapati started demanding money As the woman trusted him she transferred a total of R486416 via online transactions However when she asked Prajapati for her money he blocked her on WhatsApp and ceased all communicationIn March the woman approached Bangur Nagar police station and lodged a complaint Under the guidance of DCP Zone XI Ananad Bhoite and ACP Goregaon Division Hemant Sawant a team including API Vivek Tambe API Rahul Bhadarge and PSI Rohan Patil was formed to investigate The team worked in collaboration with the Bangur Nagar police cyber teamldquoThe mobile number used by Prajapati was constantly switched off It appeared that he had used the number solely to communicate with the complainantrdquo an officer said ldquoWe had no clue about his whereabouts except for two photosmdashone taken as a screenshot during a video call and another which he had sent on her requestrdquoldquoUsing advanced AI tools like PimEyes reverse image search and facial recognition technologies we traced Prajapatirsquos social media accounts By tracking his IP address we were able to pinpoint his location in Varanasirdquo said an officer from Bangur NagarAccording to the officer by checking Prajapatirsquos call data records CDRs the police learned that he frequently ordered food online and used rented private cars for commuting ldquoInvestigators traced one of the car drivers Prajapati had travelled with and managed to gather crucial information from himrdquoThe accused was extremely cautious and aware of ways to avoid detection He regularly changed hotels and never provided the exact hotel address for food deliveries Instead he would instruct delivery personnel to hand over the food at a different location or outside the hotel premisesDuring the investigation the driver also revealed that Prajapati had a particular fondness for a special type of sweet from a shop located some distance away from Varanasi city Prajapati a resident of Mirzapur had been living in Varanasi and had specifically asked the driver to bring those sweets for him whenever he visited even if he was ferrying other clientsUsing this information the police devised a plan They had the driver call Prajapati and inform him that he was bringing the sweets ldquoA police team accompanied the driver and when Prajapati arrived to collect the sweets the officers sitting in the same vehicle apprehended himrdquo the officer said adding that Prajapati was produced before a court last weekldquoPrajapati was remanded to police custody He has confessed to the crime and also agreed to return the amount he fraudulently obtained from the complainantrdquo said senior PI Anil ThakareyRs 486416Amount Prajapati owed complainantatOptionskeyd0ddb8ef8f1a62a8cdd22fac27fc5ea7formatiframeheight90width728params