Lucknow: For a Lucknow man, a WhatsApp friendship with a ‘woman’ that began with casual chats and calls ended in a Rs 1.92 crore cyber fraud. Then came the second shock — the person he had been talking to was a man who posed as a woman to lure him into investing money in fake schemes.

Police here have arrested the accused, identified as Imran Ghazi (34), a resident of Mishripur Depot area under Gudamba police station here, officials said on Tuesday.

Shalabh Pandey lodged a complaint on June 2, 2025, that a woman, who identified herself as Bhavika Shetty, befriended him on WhatsApp and gradually persuaded him to invest money by promising high returns. He transferred Rs 1.92 crore to various bank accounts and later found that it was a cyber fraud, police said.

An FIR was registered at the Cyber Crime police station here under relevant provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and Section 66(D) (cheating by personation using computer resources) of the Information Technology Act.

Following an investigation, a police team arrested Ghazi on Tuesday, the officials said.

During questioning, the accused told police that after his Axis Bank account was frozen, he procured forged Aadhaar and PAN cards and opened multiple bank accounts with the help of an associate, Shehzad, to receive fraud proceeds, they said.

Police said Rs 54 lakh of the cheated amount was routed through Ghazi’s accounts, which showed transactions of about Rs 1.52 crore within a month.

Fake identity documents were recovered from the possession of the accused. Further investigation is underway to trace other members of the racket, they said.