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The Indian police said on Thursday that it has arrested a Nigerian, alongside three Indians, for allegedly defrauding several Indian women on matrimonial applications.
The investigators said the suspects posed as doctors, engineers and information technology professionals to connect with women on several matrimonial apps and took money from them on the pretext of clearing customs fees for gifts.
The police said the suspects were identified as Chibaka alias Tall Issa of Nigeria and Delhi residents Aman Kumar (26), Rahul Singh (28), and Santosh Kumar (38).
The cybercrime team of Gurugram police disclosed that they recovered 25 mobile phones, 65 ATM cards, 34 chequebooks and 12 passbooks from the fraudsters.
Assistant commissioner of police (cyber) Priyanshu Diwan, said the suspects had formed a gang and were operating from Delhi in the last few months, Hindustantimes.com reported.
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In his words, “The Nigerian was the kingpin of the gang and met the other suspects in the Laxmi Nagar area of Delhi. They used to scan profiles of the victims on matrimonial sites and later befriended them on social media such as Instagram and Facebook.”
Explaining how the culprits were caught, he narrated that they cracked down on the gang members after a 36-year-old woman complained on March 22 that she was duped of ₹16 lakh (about N9m).
The woman alleged that on January 26 this year, she received a friend request on Instagram in which the person introduced himself as a doctor living in the United Kingdom.
“We exchanged our numbers and started chatting on WhatsApp. The suspect said he would be sending some gold items and £20,000. On January 30, I received a call from a woman who introduced herself as an employee of a courier company in Mumbai and said that gold and foreign currency had arrived in my name,” said Sampa Pal, a resident of DLF Phase-4.
The woman asked the victim to deposit ₹55,000 as tax and after receiving the money, she again asked to deposit ₹3,27,920. Again, on February 2, the suspect asked her to deposit ₹3 lakh followed by ₹2.98 lakh. “It did not stop here and in total, I deposited ₹16 lakh within a week and realised that I had been cheated as they were asking me to deposit another ₹7.26 lakh,” said Pal.
Police said after conducting an investigation, a case was registered under Section 120 B (conspiracy), 419 (impersonating) and 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) at the Cyber Crime police station on February 17.
