Two Nigerians held for duping C'garh woman of Rs 44 lakh

Chhattisgarh police have arrested two Nigerian nationals from New Delhi for allegedly duping a Rajnandgaon-based woman of around Rs 44 lakh after befriending her on a social networking site, an official said on Sunday.

The accused, identified as Kibi Stanley Okwo (28) and Nwakor (29), were apprehended from Chanakya Place in the national capital on Friday by a special team of Rajnandgaon police, Rajnandgaon Superintendent of Police Kamlochan Kashyap said.

"They were brought to Rajanandgaon Sunday on transit remand from Delhi," he added.

The complaint in the case was lodged in December last year and after rigorous investigation for eight months, the accused landed in the police net.

"The victim, a native of Station Para here, was operating a Facebook account in her husband's name. In July last year, she accepted a friend request she got from a user named David Suryayan on Facebook," Kashyap said.

The man claimed that he was from London and worked as a ship captain. He started chatting with the woman on messenger. Days later, he told the woman that he is sending special gifts, including a laptop, a mobile, diamond jewellery and other precious items to her although she refused to accept it, he said.

"Later, she got a call from a man who introduced himself as a staffer of the Customs department in Delhi. He asked her to pay around Rs 62,500 as customs duty to receive the goods. The woman agreed to pay the money and made the payment online," he said.

She later got calls from different numbers and mails asking to pay more money as service charge, document charge, processing charge, income tax etc for clearance of the goods, the official said.

The woman ended up paying around Rs 44 lakh online in the entire episode between July to November last year, but received nothing.

Finally, she approached Kotwali police on December 1 last year, following which an FIR was registered in this case, he said.

Police accessed the details of banks accounts to which the complainant had transferred the money, mobile numbers and e-mail ID used by the accused. The investigation revealed the location of the accused near Delhi, he said.

Subsequently, a special team was sent to Delhi and it zeroed in on the accused two days back and recovered from them a laptop and mobile phone used in the offence, he said.

The duo was booked under sections 420 (cheating), 34 (common intention) and 66 D (punishment for cheating by personation by using computer resource) of IPC, he added.