Hyderabad: 3 held for swindling woman online

Hyderabad: The cybercrime wing of Cyberabad police on Monday arrested three persons for cheating a woman through Facebook and duped her of Rs 16 lakh. The accused were identified as Nonso Chife Kelvin, a native of Nigeria, Md. Sirajuddin and Subhash Singh, both natives of New Delhi while three others are still absconding.

According to police, they received a complaint from a woman wherein she stated that she is a social worker and is involved in various developmental activities in her locality and she keeps on posting the works on Facebook. So, on September 28, she received a friend request from one, James Donald, who expressed interest in her works and also stated that he would like to donate for the developmental works.

Believing the words of the person, the woman gave her phone number to him and from thereon they kept on chatting about various issues. However, after a few days, the accused informed the woman that he has sent a gift to her so that she can use it for her works and also sent a photograph of the gift.

But the next day, the woman received a call from another accused who pretended to be customs officer and he informed her that in order to avail of the gift she has to make a payment of Rs 16 lakh towards registration fees, insurance, legal charges, price conversion charges etc. Believing the person the woman made the payment, said G Venkateshwarlu, Inspector of CCS.

He noted, "After the victim made the payment the accused gang went absconding, so she got suspicious of the fraud and filed a complaint on October 12.

Based on the complaint, an investigation was carried out and the three accused persons were arrested from Delhi and brought to the city on prisoner transit warrant and were booked under Sections 417, 419, 420 of IPC and section 66 (C&D) of IT Act and were remanded to judicial custody."