Nigerian, Indian wife duped woman of `1 lakh

New Delhi: Delhi Police said on Wednesday that they arrested a Nigerian national and his Indian wife from Dabri area of Dwarka district for their involvement in duping a woman social worker of Rs 1,22,600. The accused have been identified as Ifeanyi Joachin Nwafor and his wife (name withheld) from Assam.

Cops said that the woman complainant alleged that some months ago, a UK-based man George Moor became her Facebook friend, started liking her social media posts and requested her to accept a few gifts for the poor in India.

"After a few days, she received a call from an unknown woman saying she was from the Custom Office, Mumbai, and her office had received a parcel from the UK for clearance. The victim was asked to pay a Customs duty of Rs 26,000 for clearance of the parcel," said a police officer.

He added that the complainant deposited the money in the bank account number given by that woman caller, who then told the complainant that as the parcel contained very valuable items the complainant had to pay income tax.

Then, the victim deposited Rs 95,600 in another bank account. When she received subsequent demands for more money, she became something suspicious and reported the matter to cops.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Dwarka) Anto Alphonse said the police team obtained the mobile phone numbers of the accused persons and found that the accused had visited Assam.

A list of all passengers going from Delhi to Dimapur in Nagaland and Guwahati in Assam was obtained and analysed.

"The police team obtained details of both bank accounts where the complainant had deposited the money as well as the ATMs from where the accused withdrew the money. This led to the arrest of accused from Block SF, Chanakya Place- 1, Dabri," said Alphonse.

He added that the accused couple disclosed that they used to approach prospective victims through Facebook, WhatsApp and other social media platforms.

Nwafor had many fake Facebook accounts with different names and photographs. He used to entice his Facebook friends with precious gifts for them, after which his wife used to call the victims pretending to be a Customs official.

Nwafor was also a footballer between 2009 and 2014, having played for various teams and tournaments in Tamil Nadu as well as Kerala.