Matrimonial-crypto scam accused held
Hyderabad: Hyderabad Cyber Crime police apprehended key offender in matrimonial and investment fraud case. The accused impersonate women and induce victims to deposit their money into fake websites of crypto currency/forex trading on the false promise of high returns and marriage alliances.
Police arrested Pedapudi Prasanna Kumar (32) of Visakhapatnam. He was arrested at Chennai airport while he was coming from Cambodia.
According to police, a 28-year-old male victim from Hyderabad received a message from a woman named Anjali Kandula on Shaadi.com via WhatsApp. She claimed to be working in the UK as an Azure DevOps Engineer and gained his trust by portraying herself as caring, sincere, and interested in a long-term relationship. After building emotional trust, she induced the complainant to a fake crypto currency trading platform named Bakktcoin, claiming her uncle was an expert trader.
She persuaded him to invest large sums through Binance USDT (ERC-20) transactions. The platform falsely displayed a wallet balance of 14,481 USDT (approx. Rs 12–12.5 lakhs). On 13-11-2025, when the complainant attempted to withdraw the amount, the customer support instead pressured him to invest more. He lost a total amount of Rs 11,17,834. He immediately complained online in 1930 and came to Cybercrime police station to lodge a complaint.
V Aravind Babu DCP Cyber Crime said that the accused is the mastermind in this case. During interrogation, he confessed that in April 2024, with the intention of securing overseas employment, he approached a job consultant at Visakhapatnam, AP, and subsequently travelled to Cambodia.
“After reaching Cambodia, he came into contact with kingpins who were engaged in organised cyber fraud activities, particularly targeting Indian nationals through online social media platforms. The accused joined the kingpins and underwent training to cheat innocent victims under the pretext of trading on crypto currency platforms,” said Aravind Babu.
Furthermore, the accused orchestrated a master plan and procured approximately 400 to 500 illegal SIM cards from local persons Ravi Kiran and Ganga Raju in Visakhapatnam who were arrested previously.
He used these SIM cards to register multiple social media and matrimonial accounts. “By operating these accounts, the accused and his associates contacted victims by impersonating themselves as women and induced them to deposit their hard-earned money into fake websites of crypto currency/forex trading on the false promise of high returns and marriage alliances,” said the DCP.
The accused was arrested and was produced before the court. Further investigation is in progress to identify and apprehend other associates, including local facilitators and international links involved in the cybercrime network. Efforts are also being made to trace the money trail, identify beneficiary accounts, and recover the cheated amount.
