Duping man in name of pharma company & WHO: Three Nigerians held from Delhi

Kolkata: The cops of Cyber Crime Police Station, Kolkata arrested three Nigerian nationals from New Delhi on Saturday in connection with an investment fraud case.

According to sources, a resident of Kolkata identified as Sandip Guha of Tollygunge had lodged a complaint alleging that he received an e-mail from an unknown e-mail ID with a proposal of earning lucrative return by investing money in Kola nut trading. According to police, the fraudsters had created fake e-mail ids, WhatsApp accounts and letterheads along with forged documents of a UK-based pharmaceutical company and the World Health Organisation (WHO) to convince Guha. It is alleged that the accused persons presented the fake documents as genuine and convinced the victim identified as to invest money in the kola nut business.

Convinced, Guha transferred about Rs 1.10 crore but did not get any return. Also, when he tried to contact me via e-mail and other communication channels, nothing worked. On May 20, he lodged a complaint following which a probe was initiated.

During investigation, police marked three Zimbabwe nationals who were operating from Mohali in Punjab. In June, Kolkata Police had arrested three Zimbabwe nationals and had seized several incriminating documents along with a laptop. During further probe, cops found two UK-based WhatsApp numbers were used to contact the victim via a smartphone with Internet Protocol (IP)s traced in Nigeria. It was also found that the same WhatsApp servers were accessed at identical times by an IP linked to an Indian number which was active in Delhi. By tracking the IP of New Delhi, a police team went to Nihar Viher in New Delhi and found three Nigerian nationals working in tandem with their partners operating to dupe Indian nationals. During the raid, police seized 12 smartphones, three keypad mobile phones, a router and a laptop.

The laptop was allegedly used to create and transmit forged and fabricated documents using the forged, fabricated logo, seal and letter head of the UK based pharmaceutical company and WHO. After the raid, the three Nigerian nationals identified as Peter Mercy Olawumi alias Sofia, Kimekwu Kawilings and Alexander Success Divine were arrested. They are being brought to Kolkata on

transit remand.