Bhubaneswar: The state crime branch Friday arrested two Nigerians – Zouzou Alex (34) from Dalola Gbobele and Erikumme(46) alias Sunny from Ahimi Aebor in Delta state – from New Delhi on charges of defrauding a woman from the capital city of more than `10.49 lakh through a fake Facebook ID.
According to a complaint lodged by the victim, some time back she befriended one Bhupinder Singh, a US-based doctor, on the Facebook. One day she received a message from her Facebook “friend” asking her to deposit `10 lakh in a particular bank account to avail valuable gifts from the doctor.
Accordingly, the victim deposited the amount and waited for her gifts to arrive from the USA. However, despite repeated inquiries, she did not receive any parcel from her “friend”. Instead, the so-called friend asked her to send additional money for the transfer of her gifts. Consequently, she deposited another `49,000, but still did not receive the gifts.
After some time, her “friend” even stopped responding to the victim’s queries.
At this point, the victim smelled foul play and registered a complaint with the cyber crime police station in Cuttack, February 13. Acting on the complaint, the Crime Branch registered a case (No.03/18) under Sections 419, 420, 465, 468 and 471 of IPC R/W 66C/ 66-D of Information Technology Act, 2000.
Preliminary investigation by the CB sleuths revealed that Bhipinder Singh’s account was a fake and was created by “culprits” residing in New Delhi.
Subsequently, the Crime Branch aided by Delhi Police raided the criminals’ premises and seized their laptops, mobile phones and several SIM cards used by them in the crime.
Following arrests, the culprits were produced before the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate of West Delhi and were sent to five-day police remand.
Later, it was discovered that a similar case (55/18) was registered against both Alex and Erikumme under Sections 420 of the IPC with the Nagpada police station in Mumbai.
Another case (372/2012) under Sections 147, 148, 149, 323, 120-B and 34 of IPC is pending against Erikumme at Kirti Nagar police station in West Delhi.
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