In a major breakthrough in a fraud related case involving foreign nationals, Dehradun Police on Monday arrested two Nigerian nationals and a woman from a North-Eastern State of Manipur, wife of one of the Nigerian accused, from Delhi on charge of duping one Tasneema Kausar, resident of Kotwali, Dehradun, of around `20 lakh by posing as Reserve Bank of India and Customer Department Officers.
The accused are Anthony, a Nigerian currently living in Devli, New Delhi, his wife Huidram Sarjubala Devi and Godwin, another Nigerian national. The police have recovered a laptop, four mobile phones, one note pad and 114 SIM cards from their possession, said Dehradun SSP Shankar Rao Date while interacting with media persons on Monday. Kausar had registered a report in the Kotwali Police Station and a case under Sections 420/367/368/371/120b of IPC was registered against unidentified persons in the same Police Station on December 18.
In her written complaint, she stated the accused had called her up masquerading as Custom Department officers to inform that a courier containing Euro currency of 15 crore had been received in her name from Scotland. As per the complaint, she had been asked to deposit `65, 000 in the given bank account as custom fee to have the courier released.
The accused had given their account number for the amount to be deposited, ran the complaint. Though she had deposited the amount the courier had not been delivered to her, she said, adding that she had received a similar phone call stating the big sum to the tune of 15 crore in Euro currency could not be delivered and instead sent to Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
The anonymous caller was reportedly further asked her to procure the same after opening an account in RBI. lured by the big amount, she had deposited around `20 lakh in different bank accounts as asked by the persons who used to call her up, she had mentioned in her complaint.
However, having failed to receive the same courier, she turned suspicious in due course and registered a complaint in the Police Station, Kotwali.
A joint team from Special Operation Group and Kotwali Police Station was formed and the team members kept the phone numbers concerned on surveillance. They reviewed the other data collected and analysed the same following which they had got some clues towards the identification of the accused, Date said.
The team members had camped in Delhi to nab the accused and with the assistance of Delhi Police, Dehradun Police managed to apprehend the accused finally, he said.
In course of interrogation, the accused admitted their offences, he added.
The modus operandi of the group was to make phone calls to persons, posing as important officers and luring them with information of lottery/courier containing whopping sums or other expensive goods having been received from foreign countries in their names and asking them to deposit money to get the couriers released to them. SSP Date has announced reward of `2,500 to the team for cracking the case.