Thiruvananthapuram | A woman, accused of marrying several men and duping them, has been arrested as she was about to marry her latest victim, a panchayat member from Aryanad here, police said on Saturday.

The woman was arrested on Friday and an FIR was registered against her on the same day after her intentions were discovered by the groom just hours before the wedding, police said.

An officer at Aryanad police station, where the case was registered, said that the groom found out about her previous marriages when he examined her bag while she was getting ready for the wedding.

He informed the police and she was arrested, the officer said.

According to the complainant-groom, she contacted him over the phone in May by initially posing as her own mother and talked about a marriage proposal.

Thereafter, she called and messaged him as herself and claimed that she was unmarried and adopted and that her mother was not interested in marrying her off, the panchayat member said in his complaint.

She convinced him to get married and June 6 was fixed as the wedding date.

The complainant has claimed that he suffered a loss of Rs 7.5 lakh that he had spent on wedding preparations.

Police said an investigation has been launched to find out how many men the woman had duped in this manner.

According to a preliminary investigation, the accused woman has been married 7-8 times already, police said.