She thought she was talking to Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook. By the time Alison Weems, a retired teacher from Chakeri, realised the deception, ₹1.57 crore had vanished from her accounts. What began with a single friend request in January 2025 unfolded into a 13-month-long fraud involving multiple fake identities, fake companies, and a fake lawyer—each layer more elaborate than the last.
Weems, who spent decades teaching at a Methodist school in Kanpur, reportedly believed she was entering a partnership to open a new school in the city. The impersonators allegedly posed as Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, and offered to invest in an educational venture, a pitch investigators say was tailored to her background.
After the initial contact, the accused allegedly introduced new identities to sustain the deception, including a supposed associate of Elon Musk, founder of X (formerly Twitter), a singer named Josh Turner, and a lawyer identified as Ashok Suresh.
HT reached out to Meta but did not get a response till the time of the report being published.
Officials said the fraud was neither random nor crude. It was sustained and methodical, relying on WhatsApp chats, phone calls, and social media interactions to build trust and gradually extract money. Investigators identified the scam as a “pig butchering” fraud, where victims are groomed over weeks or months before being systematically fleeced. Each stage was designed to keep the victim engaged while introducing new reasons for payment.
Investigators said Weems was allegedly convinced to open a trading account as part of the investment plan, showing the psychological manipulation involved. When she reportedly began questioning repeated fund transfers, the accused allegedly added another layer, introducing entities named Miracle Givers and Lead India. A person posing as a lawyer allegedly assured her that the money could be recovered after payments towards taxes, currency conversion charges, stamp duty, and legal fees. Each payment was followed by fresh financial demands.
The funds were allegedly routed through five separate bank accounts, a pattern designed to fragment transactions and complicate tracking, police said. Between January 25, 2025, and February 20, 2026, the accused allegedly siphoned off ₹1,57,38,630.
The retired teacher finally filed a complaint on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal on February 27, 2026. An FIR was registered on March 16 at the Kanpur cyber crime police station. Authorities have frozen ₹30.42 lakh across linked accounts, while the remaining amount has been traced but not yet recovered.
Anjali Vishwakarma, additional DCP cyber crime, confirmed that the investigation is ongoing. Officials said the case reflects a wider pattern of long-duration investment frauds, often called pig butchering scams, in which victims are groomed over weeks or months before being allegedly defrauded of large sums.
HT has seen a copy of the FIR. The cyber crime police said the case is being investigated under BNS Section 318(4) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, and Section 66D of the Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008, which pertain to impersonation and cheating through electronic communication.
