Nigerian man held for duping Kolkata senior citizen of Rs 8 lakh after FB 'friendship

MP | 6 May 2023 | Kolkata: A lonely 64-year-old woman from Parnasree, who started spending hours on Facebook during pandemic, ended up walking into a trap set by a Nigerian national, working with an Indian fraudster, and lost around Rs 8 lakh. The woman approached police in April.

The accused, identified as Young Emeka, was finally arrested early on Saturday from the outskirts of Delhi. The detective department and Delhi Police crime branch had to storm a neighbourhood in Chander Vihar in the dark to arrest the accused as the cops were initially stopped by residents.

According to DC (cyber) Atul V, Emeka, posing as a British man, named Eric James, struck up a friendship with the woman on the online platform. As they ostensibly grew close, Eneka reportedly offered to send the woman a gift, which he claimed, consisted of foreign currency. Shortly, he reportedly told her the Customs had seized it as a "duty" of Rs 7.9 lakh had not been paid. The woman was reportedly convinced to pay the pending "Customs duty" and within a week, she lost all her savings, police said. Once the money was gone, the accused cut off all ties with her.

"Among the accounts, where the money had gone, two were found to be private banks, one of them in Mizoram. A part of the amount was credited to a Mizoram woman's account at a bank branch at Hnahthial in Mizoram. The phone number linked was someone else's, as was common in the modus operandi of Nigerian fraudsters, police said. "Based on the IMEI (device) search of the number, we traced Emeka to near Jiya Memorial Public School in Chander Vihar," said Atul V. The said phone has been seized. "Emeka was produced at Tis Hazari court in Delhi on Saturday, from where we are securing his transit custody," said Atul.

Police are finding out if Emeka was part of cyber gangs in Delhi. "These gangs have duped hundreds of women, not just in India but also in Portugal, Sweden and the Netherlands," said an officer