3 Africans arrested for duping Chandigarh residents of Rs 8.72 lakh

THE CYBER cell of Chandigarh Police has arrested three people from West African countries — including the Republic of Ghana and Republic of the Cote d’Ivoire— for cheating a local resident of Rs 8.72 lakh, after luring him through the fake Facebook profile of a woman named Tina Francis. The men were arrested from Raj Nagar in Palam, Delhi.

The accused were identified as Gideon Sebastian, 42, Clement Aful, 33, of Ghana, and Moise Kei, 30, of Republic of Ivoirienne, who were remanded in two days police custody on Wednesday. Police said they have recovered 23 mobile phones, 23 SIM cards, 40 ATM cards of different banks, 8 passbooks, 4 cheque books, 5 Wifi-Hotspots, 1 dongle, and 4 laptops were recovered from the possession of the suspects. Sources said arrested accused are suspected to be involved in more than 50 cases of cheating registered in various parts of the country. Sources said that the IMEI numbers of the seized cell phones used in the crime will be uploaded on a common portal of all state police through which the police will figure out if the phones were used in other online crimes also.

According to the police, one Yashvir Singh of Mani Majra, had lodged a complaint alleging that he had been befriended with one woman named Tina Francis on Facebook three months ago. Tina had lured him with the promise of sending him a costly gift from the UK, for which he will have to just pay custom charges. A few days, Yashvir Singh received a call from a woman, who introduced herself as a representative of RBL bank and told him to deposit a certain amount of money in a bank account. Yashvir deposited the money in multiple accounts but did not receive any of his gifts. Yashvir told the police that during the entire episode, the woman, Tina Francis, was in constant touch with him.

A case has been registered at Mani Majra police station.