A 52-year-old man was allegedly duped of Rs 22.78 lakh by a person he befriended on Instagram. The fraudster lured him to invest in a US-based pharmaceutical firm that exports medicinal seeds that cure breast cancer. According to Times of India, the victim told police that he came across a California-based woman on Instagram in April. The two they exchanged contact numbers and started chatting on WhatsApp.

The woman identified herself as Laura Doura, who claimed that one of her family members work for a pharmaceutical company in the US that sourced medicinal seeds that cure breast cancer. The police said that the victim works as a senior official in a communications company in Navi Mumbai and is a resident of Lodha Complex.