New Delhi:
Five men, including three from Nepal and one from Nigeria, were arrested on Friday for allegedly cheating a woman in southwest Delhi’s Kishangarh area, police said. The accused have been identified as Prakash Gurung (24), Paras Mehto (25), Ankit (20), all residents of Nepal, and Vinay Kumar (25), a resident of Bihar and Chijioke (37), a resident of Nigeria, they said.
Police received a complaint where the woman alleged that she met a man named Dr Vijay Giri in one of the online dating apps. They became friends and started chatting on Whatsapp. Giri claimed that he is a US citizen based in UK and wanted to meet her, the woman alleged. Around 10 months later, she received a call from Giri who told her that he had landed in Mumbai and is stuck with customs officials for carrying foreign currency and extra luggage and needed money to pay the fine and bribe, a senior police officer said.
On his request, she then transferred money in various accounts provided to her. The victim was cheated to the tune of around Rs 7 lakh, police said. During investigation, police analysed the details of five bank accounts in which the funds were transferred. It was found that all the accounts were in five different names. One of the account holders was an African national, the officer said.
According to the police, it was found that the accused had opened new accounts and their credit or debit cards were being delivered to them at an address in CR Park area. ”On Friday, a raid was conducted in CR Park area and three Nepalese nationals were apprehended. Based on their disclosure, Kumar, who used to prepare fake IDs for them, was also arrested from Rajender Nagar,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (southwest) Ingit Pratap Singh said.
Further investigation led to the arrest of Chijioke, police said. Preliminary interrogation revealed that Chijioke and his brother Frank Obinna were the kingpin of this gang. Gurung used to bring people from Nepal and open accounts in various banks in their names using fake IDs prepared by Kumar, the DCP said. They used to procure sim cards on those fake Indian IDs.
The kingpin used to give Rs one lakh for arranging one fake account holder from Nepal. The debit cards of the newly opened bank accounts were then given to the kingpin who used these accounts to cheat people, police said. Police recovered 12 passbooks of different banks, 11 debit cards, seven cheque books, eight mobile phones, nine Aadhar cards, seven pan cards, one printer, one stolen scooter and other items from their possession, they added.
