LUCKNOW: Ayodhya Police busted one of the biggest cyber scams in the history of the temple town involving an online fraud of Rs 3.85 crore carried out in the name of Ram Lalla’s prasad.Exploiting the spiritual fervour among devotees following Ram Lalla’s consecration on January 22, 2024, the accused, posed as a professor at Northeastern University in Seattle and lured lakhs of devotees through a fake website offering Ram temple prasad delivered to their doorsteps.The scam was orchestrated by Ashish Singh, originally from Windsor Park, Indirapuram in Ghaziabad, and currently residing in the United States. He launched a fake portal, khadiorganic.com, just weeks before the 2024 consecration ceremony, collecting orders from over 6.3 lakh domestic and international devotees between December 19, 2023, and January 12, 2024.Ashish Singh was offering “free delivery” of prasad, temple replicas, and commemorative coins of the Ram temple. However, he charged a “facilitation fee” of Rs 51 from Indian users and USD 11 from overseas devotees.Through his website, Singh collected payments via multiple digital gateways, including Yes Bank, Paytm, PhonePe, MobiKwik, and IDFC, amassing Rs 10.49 crore in transactions, with Rs 3.85 crore of which was for prasad delivery alone, while the rest came from sales of other items.
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