Bhubaneswar, Nov. 5: A school teacher was allegedly cheated of Rs 1.55 lakh by a man who claimed to be a UK national after he befriended the victim, a woman, through Facebook.

The 34-year-old teacher had become online friends with the UK national, who identified himself as Robert Ballan, a month ago.

"We have been chatting for past one month and on November 1, he called me to say he was sending a me a present. On November 2, I received a call from a man who identified himself as a custom official at Delhi Airport and told me to deposit Rs 23,580 for custom clearance of a parcelled gift," said the victim. This she did.

Later, another man told the woman that the gift was worth 20,000 British pounds and she could be arrested for not clearing the customs duty. "They threatened me of arrest and asked me to deposit another Rs 1.3 lakh in another account. I deposited the money and on November 4 he again demanded Rs 70,000 from me. Later, his mobile phone became unreachable," she said.

She later approached the police, who have started an investigation.

In June, a 42-year-old teacher of an English medium school in the city also cheated of Rs 7.81 lakh by a man claiming to be a UK national.

The police suspect a well-organised gang whose members posed as foreign nationals with well-paid jobs involved in the crime. "The fraudsters procure SIM cards from other countries to convince their targets that they are foreign nationals. Once the target is convinced, the fraudsters tell them they are coming to India with a huge amount of foreign currency and gold and demand money on the pretext of customs clearance and other dues," said a police official. Deputy commissioner of police Satyabrata Bhoi said the police had been advising people to be on guard against such frauds.