Nigerian national convicted in cheating case

Kolkata: The Kolkata Police secured the conviction of a Nigerian national in a case of cheating of over Rs 77 lakhs and under prominent sections of Foreigners Act and Information Technology Act less than a year of his arrest. The Bankshal Court sentenced the accused to 2 years of imprisonment with a fine of Rs 10,000, failure to pay which will attract additional imprisonment of 3 months.

The accused Ugochukwu Wisdom Okoye (30) originally hailing from Oke Street at Abujain, Nigeria was arrested on September 2016 on the basis of a complaint lodged by one Dipendra Nath Banerjee at Shakespeare Sarani police station. Okoye was arrested from Krishna Park area in Nesbarai, New Delhi.

According to police, Okoye had befriended Dipendra by exchanging pleasantries over frequent mails since the last few years.

In 2016, Okoye expressed his desire to start business in India and asked for money from Dipendra for some necessary processing and official charges like conversion of dollars into Indian currency, ATM card activation fee, Income Tax amount, RBI processing fee, security deposits with RBI etc. He asked for the money on short term and promised to refund it at once he landed in India

For gaining the confidence of Dipendra, the accused further fabricated documents with fraudulent designations of RBI Mumbai, DG of Income Tax, Foreigner Regional Registration Offices, Foreign Remittance Department as well as VISA and flight tickets to defraud Dipendra to the tune of around Rs 77 lakhs.

The police had presented the charge-sheet in the case within a period of 3 months.