Nigerian cyber fraud racket busted, 12 held

Hyderabad, April 25 (INN): The Crime Investigation Department on Monday revealed that it has taken into custody twelve persons on charges of duping a city resident of over Rs 3 lakh by making her to believe that she had won an online lottery.

According to CID Additional Director General of Police, the accused lured the daughter of Mr B Rajendra Prasad of Madanapalli in Chittor received an email from an ID mrwaltermurphy@yahoo.co.uk that her e-mail ID had won the Anniversary Award of Microsoft, London, UK of $ 1,000,000 on February 9, 2011.

The victim of the fraud was asked to send her details for claiming the prize money. She believed the email to be true and contacted the sender.

In the process the complaint was made to deposit an amount of Rs 3,20,260 into various bank accounts, belonging to North Eastern States, on different pretexts like processing charges, towards customs tax to claim the prize amount.

On March 13, 2011 a person by name Iswick, claiming to be from UN Courier Service came to her house with a courier box.

The said Iswick opened the box and took out two notes which were black and cleaned them with a special chemical and turned into 100 American dollars notes. He further informed the victim that in order to clean the remaining notes some more chemical is required. Mr Iswick demanded an additional Rs 2,00,000 for the chemicals and left for Delhi. Subsequently the complainant developed suspicion and gave a complaint at Cyber Crime Police Station, CID, Hyderabad.

Based on the complaint, the Cyber Crime Cell registered a case and took up investigations. Inspector A Ramulu, with help of experts of the CID identified the house of the accused while they were still contacting the victim through the mobile phone 9953630604 demanding more money.

The investigating team obtained a Search Warrant from the Court and a police party went to Delhi, conducted searches at the house in Bengali Colony, Mahaveer Enclave, New Delhi.

The team arrested 12 persons from the house on April 22, 2011 and also recovered incriminating material like laptops, mobile phones, data cards etc. Among the arrested accused are three women from the North Eastern states.

The accused confessed their involvement in the offence. They also confessed that they indulged in such offences and duped people all over India. The women helped the accused in procuring some Bank accounts and acted as money mules. They were brought to Hyderabad on transit remand.

The police identified the accused as Paulinus Oti alias Victor Scott ( 31), Nwaneti Chigozie (22), Obumnaenne Emmanuel Ezenwaka (31), Solomon E Achulo (27), Ojimba Henry (31), Paulinus Emeka Adibe (36), Ezennayi Emmanuel (33), Ekechukwou Onyebuchi Patrick (28), Umeokoli Nnaemeka (26). All of them are Nigerian citizens.

Apart from them, the police have also taken custody of Malsawmthangi (33), Chatwanremlali (20), and Laldingliani (26) hailing from Aizwal.