Two African men, teen from Meghalaya held for duping businesswoman of lakhs
New Delhi: A joint team of personnel from the Cyber Cell of Dwarka District and Meghalaya Police arrested two African nationals and their Indian associate for duping a Shillong-based businesswoman of more than Rs 20 lakh.
Police on Friday said that the accused were identified as Ghana national Osei Prince (27), Ivory Coast national Diarra Habib (22), and their associate Maxerick Syiemlieh (19) from Meghalaya.
According to police, the woman complainant alleged that some months ago, a UK-based man claiming to be Owen Galvin befriended her on Facebook.
She told cops that after a while, Galvin told her he would send her $50,000 as a gift. A few days after this, she received a call from an unknown person asking her to come to the Customs office to collect a parcel from UK.
The called told her she had to pay customs duty for the parcel and the woman accordingly deposited the same. However, the called demanded more money, on the pretext of GST, Income Tax and other charges. In this way, she was duped to the tune of Rs 20,64,384.
Realising she had been duped, she approached police and accordingly a case was registered at the Shillong Cyber Crime police station and investigation was taken up.
Shillong Police requested the Dwarka district police to assist them in the probe and track the accused. Eventually, the Cyber Cell of Dwarka District and Shillong Police arrested the three accused from Shivam apartment at Mandir Wali Gali in Mahavir Enclave-I.
Cops said that during interrogation, the accused disclosed they used to approach people through Facebook, WhatsApp and other online media.
"They had made many fake Facebook accounts in different names and made many friends. They would then entice them by offering precious gifts," police said.
If a person was entrapped, Syiemlieh used to call them posing as a Customs official and convince them to make various payments to specific bank accounts to receive the gift, cops explained the modus operandi.
Once the money was deposited in the account, the accused would withdraw it through ATM within hours.
