Nigerian among 2 held for duping people

Warangal: In a major catch, the Shayampet police in coordination with the Cybercrime unit of the Warangal Police Commissionerate arrested a Delhi-based Nigerian national and a Nagaland woman, who were involved in duping several gullible people in the name of online lottery.

Speaking to the newsmen here on Wednesday, Commissioner of Police V Ravinder said that they had arrested 37-year-old Demion Uchenna and Henia of Signal Angami village in Dimapur district of Nagaland State on charges of cheating people of lakhs of rupees. The police seized 23 cell phones, one passport and Rs 28 lakh in cash from them.

He said that the accused, who claimed themselves as the representatives of the Coca Cola online lottery, used to send text messages to the unsuspecting victims informing them that they had won £5 lakh (Great Britain Pounds) in lottery. It amounts to Rs 4.49 crore in Indian currency. 

The accused used to take the details such as names, addresses, e-mails and other details of those, who responded to their bait. Later, they used to ask the victims to deposit some money for registration purpose.

In one such an instance, Siripuram Mahender of Mylaram village deposited Rs 1.80 lakh to the account of conmen. In all, he deposited to a tune of Rs 10 lakh in different accounts of the dupers for immigration, customs and money laundering charges.

The accused also used fake documents in the name of Delhi Police Commissioner so as to trap the victim. Mahender, who didn’t get lottery money, finally suspected it as cheating and lodged a complaint with the Shayampet police.

In a similar incident, the accused also cheated K Bharath Kumar of Bachannapet to a tune of Rs 71 lakh. After investigating both the cases, the cybercrime unit has found that the crime was organised from Delhi.

With the clues such as cell phone numbers and e-mail addresses provided by the cybercrime unit, the Commissioner had formed two special teams. The special teams went to Delhi and arrested both the accused and shifted them to Warangal.

Uchenna, who came to India in 2015, befriended with Heinia. They chose fake online lottery to make easy money. Since then they had cheated six persons and made of about Rs 1 crore. The gang duped several people at Cyberabad, Rachakonda and Hyderabad.

The Commissioner of Police advised denizens not to get lured to such baits besides being cautious to the calls from unknown persons. He commended Parkal ACP Sudhindra, Shayampet Inspector Sadulla Baba, Cybercrim Inspector Vishweshwar, Atmakur Inspector Mahender Reddy and IT Core Inspector Raghavender for cracking the case.