Kerala Police arrest Nigerian, partner from Delhi for swindling hundreds online

Officials said they received three complaints in the last two months from people who were cheated in a similar manner. One of the complainants is a college professor who was cheated of Rs 22 lakh, while the other two were cheated of Rs 6 lakh and Rs 4 lakh.

“All of them told us that they received an online friendship request from a woman who regularly posted about her foreign trips and about managing celebrities. The victims thought the woman was genuine and replied to her messages. After weeks of chatting, they received gifts from her. However, they also got calls from a customs official who demanded money to process the gifts at the airport,” said a police officer from Palakkad Cyber Cell in Kerala.

The victims ended up paying lakhs of rupees thinking it would be refunded by the woman later. They eventually understood that they had been cheated.

It was difficult to trace the accused since they deleted the social media accounts soon after. The swindled money was also transferred to several other bank accounts.

“We were receiving similar complaints from men in Tamil Nadu. Many of the victims were embarrassed and didn’t want to lodge an FIR. We started looking for the accused on social media and traced the money trail. We then found that the accused were hiding in Uttam Nagar,” the officer said.

A team of police officers were sent to Delhi and they caught the accused. During interrogation, they learnt that Chinedu came from Nigeria a few years ago and befriended Radhika in Delhi. The two planned to cheat people and started creating fake social media profiles, posing as celebrity managers to “lure” men. They also used other methods to cheat gullible people online. Investigation is on to catch the other accused involved in the scam.