Net-banking fraud cuffs on 11, including seven Nigerians

Eleven people, including seven Nigerians, were arrested for cheating people through net banking and fake lottery offers, police said Friday.

Joint Commissioner of Police Sandeep Goel said seven Nigerians - Austine Ikechukwu, 39, Nwanyanwu Sabinus Oyeyechnkwn, 28, Ekene Frankline Amanambu, 23, Henry Chibuzor, 23, Jonathan Ekemita, 35, Chijioke Augusutus, 33 and Uchechukwu Cajetan, 27 - were running the syndicate along with Abhijit Sharma, 31, Lalit Malhotra, 27, Ganga Arora, 32, and Ved Prakash, 42.

They were arrested from different parts of the capital, he said.

"The Nigerian nationals would hack the user-id and password of Indians' bank accounts by using proxy server operating in the United States and then pass on the information to Mumbai-based Sonu and Vijay Grover. Thereafter, Sonu, through his other accomplices, would siphon off the money," Goel said.

These accounts used to be on fake identities of people who agreed to lend their accounts to Sonu and Grover on commission. In the instant case, the account holder provided ATM cards with PIN of such accounts to Ved, Lalit and Abhijit for withdrawal of the fraudulent money.

Director of a Noida-based private firm Manish Kumar Jain had lodged a complaint in May saying unknown people had carried out 27 unauthorised online transactions from the company's bank account in the Kotak Mahindra's Karol Bagh branch.

Around Rs.53 lakh was siphoned off into 12 different bank accounts being maintained in different cities across India through this fraudulent transfer, the complaint said.

Police also recovered seven laptops, 24 mobile phones, 22 SIM cards, six data cards, four pen drives, five passports with expired Indian visa and six fake driving licences.

The Nigerians were also involved in fake lottery scams sending fake emails on behalf of national banks. They would say the bank was to reimburse payment of unclaimed assets for which the complainant was a beneficiary. The claimant would deposit demanded amounts into various accounts for release of the said remittances only to realise he had been duped.