They say truth is often stranger than fiction and one can figure out why. Bollywood movie ‘Ladies vs Ricky Bahl’ starring Ranveer Singh showed a handsome, tall, and dark man duping women on the pretext of marriage. However, in reality, an overweight 66-year-old man, standing barely 5 feet 2 inches tall and sporting an ugly moustache managed to do just the same on a more sophisticated level. Bibhu Prakash Swain, the conman has landed in the authorities’ net after duping 27 women for crores.
Among Bibhu Prakash Swain’s victims were a high-ranking border police officer, a chartered accountant, teachers, a doctor, and even two Supreme Court advocates.
Shaddi.com swindler — Bibhu Prakash Swain
While Shimon Hayut a.k.a. Simon Leviev, the star of the latest Netflix Documentary ‘Tinder Swindler’ used Tinder to lure women, Swain used matrimonial sites like Jeevansathi.com, Shaadi.com, and Bharatmatrimony.com to poach his next victim.
Swain targeted women in their 40s who were not married and facing societal pressure from their friends, family, and peers. His other targets included divorcees and widows who became easy fodder.
Odisha police remarked that Swain would pose as a wealthy 51-year-old, working as deputy director-general of health education and training with an annual income of Rs 50-70 lakh.
Poorly written bios
Swain’s poorly structured and error-ridden bio for the matrimonial sites read, “…presently posted South Central division as the chief controler of NEET UG and PG entrance examination and I search a porson how having good understanding to menten are good resource of family values,”
On LinkedIn, Swain has his occupation listed as “dy director general ministry of healt and higher education at ministry of healt.”
Swain targeted desperate single, widowed and divorced women
In a country like India, marriage is still considered the absolute and final frontier for any woman. If a woman is not married by her early 30s or 40s, she is considered an economic burden on the family. Swain conveniently took advantage of this psychology and used the ‘government job’ as bait to woo the prospective matches.
He forged identity cards and despite looking well above 50, managed to sweet-talk his way out of the situations. Such was the level of sophistication that Swain rented three separate flats in Bhubaneshwar where he kept three wives at any given point.
Pressured wives to hand over the money
After marriage, he would often tell his wives to lend him money, pleading that the government had frozen his bank account for some reason. Once he got the money, he would look for another wife. He also used the wives for sexual pleasures but mainly for the money.
According to a Hindustan Times report, his wives’ contact details were saved in his phone under names such as “wife teacher,” “wife doctor,” or “wife Bangalore,” and “wife Delhi,” depending on where the woman was based.
The probe started last year
Police launched a probe into Swain’s multiple lives in May 2021 after a complaint by one 48-year-old wife who, by chance, discovered that he was already married to at least seven other women.
Before being caught earlier this month, Swain was in the process of finalizing two more weddings. He has been charged under sections 498 (A), 419, 468, 471 and 494 of the Indian Penal Code, and remanded to judicial custody in Bhubaneswar.
From his first marriage in 1982, Swain has two sons and a daughter, all well-placed doctors, from whom he is estranged. Two decades later, in 2002, he married a doctor in Jharkhand. She came to know of his fraud but kept silent. Swain has two children from this marriage.
Authorities have remarked that Swain had married at least 27 women in 10 states, defrauded 13 banks in Kerala of Rs 1 crore through 128 forged credit cards in 2006, and cheated people in Hyderabad of Rs 2 crore, promising seats in MBBS courses for their children,
It is being reported that Swain also ran diagnostic centres where he harvested kidneys and other organs illegally. The police are investigating the case and more skeletons are expected to tumble out of Swain’s closet. However, one thing is sure, we may soon get a movie exploring India’s biggest ever marriage scam.