3 Nigerians held for fraud

Accused sent an e-mail to victim stating he had won an online lottery

Addressing reporters here on Friday, Nalini Krishnamurthy, DIG, Economic Offences’ Wing, CID, said Collins Osarobo Jacobs (37), Bemidele Emmanuel Kent (38) and Godson Omorodion alias Junior alias Sir Joseph (36), all Nigerian nationals, had allegedly duped a man by sending him an e-mail stating that he had won US$ 800,000 last Monday.

The sender introduced herself as Linda Joy from Fedex Company and informed that an international cashier bank draft/cheque of the sum would be sent to him and asked to furnish personal details.

When the complainant replied to the mail, persons claiming to be Kelvin Green, David Divine, Sangeetha, Sir Joseph and others contacted him at various times and asked him to deposit Rs 75,000 as processing fee and customs clearing charges in two bank accounts in Mumbai. The unsuspecting complainant obliged willingly.

On Saturday, Sir Joseph brought a large box to the complainant’s house claiming that “it contained dollars to be delivered to him”. He, however, pretended that the dollars were covered with some substance and an expensive ink needed to be coated on it to bare it. For this, he demanded another Rs 70,000 from him.

But this time, the complainant gave him only Rs 10,000 and Joseph went away on the pretext of bringing the ink. However, when he did not return and repeated calls went unheeded, he approached the Cyber Crime police, Nalini said.

Swinging into action, the police nabbed the trio after the complainant identified Sir Joseph at a restaurant near Majestic on Thursday. The trio had stayed in Kalyan Nagar and Bellandur. The IP address of some e-mails was located outside the country. The visas of the accused were expired, she said.

It seems that online racket is being run clandestinely in Nigeria as almost all those arrested so far belonged to that country. Some Indians were also involved in this enterprise as the bank accounts where money was asked to deposited were maintained in Mumbai, she said.

The police were yet to open the box and the passports of the accused were being verified.