A 28-year-old VFX artist, who works in animated and Bollywood movies, was duped of Rs 5.10 lakh in a gift fraud. It took her over a month to realise that she had been cheated, after which she approached the Malad police on Thursday to lodge an FIR.

The fraud started when the victim, a resident of the Chincholibunder area, Malad West, received a friend request from a man named Amarpreet Singh on a social media platform in August. Singh’s profile indicated that he was settled in the United Kingdom, which led her to accept his request. The two began chatting and eventually exchanged mobile numbers.