Two Nigerians held in online cheating case

Police here arrested two Nigerian nationals for allegedly trying to cheat people in the name of fake Lottery prizes, offering online.
Based on credible inputs, Cyber Crimes Team laid a trap yesterday and nabbed Osa Buogbemen Christopher, 31 and Ogiegbea Amen Victor, 34, from Manikonda area, police said today.
The duo, who belong to Benin city of Nigeria, were under surveillance for the last few days for dubious life style, a release from Cyberabad Police said.
Cyber Crime sleuths have seized two laptops and two cell phones from their possession.
When the laptops were opened for analysis, it contained about one lakh email IDs of different people and found incriminating evidence such as draft documents of letters being sent to victims telling that they have won a lottery called 'Microsoft Outlook lottery' of prize money of USD 8,00,000, it said.

Police said during interrogation, the duo admitted to be living in different cities in India illegally. They said they had come to India on student visa about 3 years ago.

The seized laptops would be sent to Forensic Science Laboratory for analysis, police said, adding, Cyber Crimes police team is probing to ascertain the victims who have fallen into the trap.
Normally, all the splinter groups of Nigerian gangs share the information among themselves. They draft fake letters, prepare logos, email IDs of different persons which are available on 'darknet' sites and share among themselves, the release said.
Police said many gangs also collect money in the name of 'Anti Terrorism and Drug Traffic Certificate'. By the time victim realises he has been cheated, they change their phone numbers and stop responding to the emails.

In some cases, online fraudsters collect the profiles of job seekers from different job portals and send mails to them introducing themselves as authorised persons of reputed MNCs by sending fake emails, police said.