Reuters

Singapore, Mar 21: A married Singaporean woman who met a man in an online chatroom and conned him into giving her about $45,000 after she promised to marry him, was jailed for six months on Monday, court documents showed.

Maliha Ramu, 36, used a false name and photographs of Bollywood actress Gayatri Joshi when she began an online relationship with Bharani Indran, an Indian national living in the United States, according to The Straits Times newspaper.

After Ramu promised in 2004 to marry Indran, she asked him to send her a total of about $45,000 for her mother's funeral expenses and for a friend's wedding, according to the court documents.

Indran eventually grew suspicious of Ramu when she asked for more money and filed a police report in Singapore. The paper said Ramu's husband had no idea she had struck up an online relationship until the police came to their apartment to arrest her in August.

"No sensible man will - without seeing her in person first - send so much money to a woman who claims she loves him and wants to marry him," Ramu's husband was quoted as saying.