Nigerian national, 6 others held for duping people in Guj

Seven persons, including a Nigerian national and five women, were held from Uttam Nagar area of New Delhi by the Ahmedabad Cyber Crime Branch in two separate cases of cheating.

In the first case, a Nigerian national Ikwenz Paulinus and live-in partner Virhuni Nayekha, a resident of Nagaland, were arrested on Thursday from their rented house in Uttam Nagar area of New Delhi following registration of an FIR by a city-based woman.

The woman, in her complaint, alleged one Ben Morris, claiming to be a London resident, befriended her on Facebook four months ago and proposed marriage, a Crime Branch release informed on the Friday.

"This Morris told the woman he had expensive gifts, including gold and an IPhone, for her. She later got a call from a person posing as a Customs officer asking her to deposit Rs 7.5 lakh as airport fees to claim the gifts. She deposited the money in a bank and realised later she had been duped," it said.

Police said Paulinus had created a fake profile to lure and trap women while his partner Nayekha called as the Customs officer, an official said.

"They were picked up from Delhi on basis of technical surveillance. They have reportedly duped 15 people in the last one year," he said.

In the second case, five persons, including four women, were held on Thursday from Uttam Nagar in Delhi for allegedly running an illegal call centre offering airport jobs.

They have been identified as Sachin Kumar(36), Anita Rathod (24), Nitu Singh (28), Aarti Kashyap (21) and Seema Kumari(19).

"They were held after a woman, who had applied for one of the jobs the accused advertised in a paper, approached police. She responded to the advertisement and was directed by the call centre to deposit Rs 1.16 lakh as processing fees. Once she deposited the money, she got a fake Airport Authority of India appointment letter," the release said.

The police's probe has revealed Sachin and Anita ran the call centre while the other three women were working as tele-callers, it said.

"They may have cheated 200 persons in Gujarat in this manner," an official said.