Abhishek Shukla arrested in India after allegedly scamming woman out of $650K and faking death

False identities, ghost investors, and faking his own death: The lengths a former Northern Territory university lecturer allegedly went to scam an Indian woman out of $650,000.

Indian police arrested Charles Darwin University business lecturer Abhishek Shukla last month alleging he duped a woman out of Rs 3.6 crore — the equivalent of $641,482.20 AUD— during a long-running romance scam.

A former Northern Territory university lecturer has been arrested in India after allegedly scamming a woman out of $650,000 and then faking his death in an elaborate international romance scam.

Indian police from Pune arrested former Charles Darwin University business lecturer Abhishek Shukla last month alleging he duped a woman out of Rs 3.6 crore — the equivalent of $641,482.20 AUD — during a long-running romance scam.

The Additional Commissioner of Police Pankaj Deshmukh alleged the 44-year-old posed as “Dr Rohit Oberoi” and used a matrimonial website to contact more than 3000 women as part of his scheme.

The Economic Times and multiple other local media reports said it was alleged a Delhi-based woman was contacted by ‘Dr Oberoi’ in 2023, and developed a close relationship even living together in multiple Indian cities.

It was alleged Shukla convinced the 40-year-old divorced woman to expand her business internationally and offered to co-invest in her plans.

Abhishek Shukla. Picture: Justin Kennedy

At the same time it was alleged Dr Shukla created fake Singapore-based business associates ‘Yvonne Handayani’ and ‘ Vincent Kuan’ to manipulate her into sending the money to Singapore and several Indian banking accounts.

Police allege Dr Shukla started telling his girlfriend he had mouth cancer and slowly started cutting off contact.

By September 2024, the victim received an email from ‘Vincent Kuan’ stating ‘Dr Oberoi’ had died.

Mr Deshmukh said a cyber police investigation revealed “Dr Rohit Oberoi was, in fact, Abhishek Shukla”, resulting in the Australian citizen being arrested at the Mumbai airport on Wednesday, June 25.

Police have alleged Dr Shukla contacted around 3194 women using fake profiles on the matrimonial site, with the investigation calling on other potential marriage fraud victims to come forward.

Local media reported Dr Shukla was charged with cheating by personation, cheating and dishonestly inducing the delivery of property, forgery, and cheating using computer resources.

Dr Shukla has been most recently living in Perth, however was previously a Charles Darwin University lecturer in management and marketing.

Dr Abhishek Shukla, who was funded to make his own feature-length film Social Media Murder Society, has been charged over an alleged romance scam.

Ironically, Dr Shukla previously received funding for a feature-length film on the dangers of social media, called ‘Social Media Murder Society’, which previewed in Darwin in May 2018.

“So often what we are doing when we use social media is exposing ourselves to absolute strangers. We only know them by who they say they are, but they can have extraordinary influence in our lives,” he said in 2018.

“My film explores the dark side of this influence. There are real dangers in sharing too much information online with strangers.”

His biography on an open-access journal website said Dr Shukla holds a Doctor of Philosophy in International Business and Strategic Management from the University of Melbourne, while as a CDU lecturer he had held “important positions within the Business School in the last six years”.

Charles Darwin University does not currently list Dr Shukla on its staff directory.

The university was asked to confirm if it was aware of the allegations and when Dr Shukla’s employment with the CDU ended.

“As this is a police matter, we will not be providing comment,” a spokeswoman said.

Originally published as Abhishek Shukla arrested in India after allegedly scamming woman out of $650K and faking death