Police have arrested three Africans for duping people on the pretext of payment of customs duty for gifts received from abroad.
The accused, identified as Gideon Sebastian, 42, and Clement Aful, 33, both from Ghana, and Moise Kei, 30, from Ivory Coast, were arrested from Delhi.
The cyber crime investigation cell of Chandigarh has also recovered 23 mobile phones with 23 SIM cards of different companies, 40 ATM cards of different banks, eight bank passbooks, four cheque books, four laptops and multiple Wi-Fi dongles.
The arrests came following a February complaint by Yashveer Singh of Pipliwala town, Manimajra.
In his complaint, Singh had stated that he accepted a Facebook friend request from a woman namely Tina Francis. When they started chatting, she shared that she lived in the United Kingdom. Eventually, they exchanged their mobile phone numbers and started interacting via WhatsApp. Singh said the woman told him that she will be sending him a gift.
A few days later, he received a call from a man identifying himself as a customs officer, who told him that a parcel for him had come in from London and he needed to pay ₹33,500 as customs duty for clearing it.
He deposited the money, but continued to receive calls for more money on one pretext or the other. Singh alleged that he ended up paying ₹8 lakh for the parcel, which was said to contain dollars, but he never received it, following which he informed the police.
{{/usCountry}}He deposited the money, but continued to receive calls for more money on one pretext or the other. Singh alleged that he ended up paying ₹8 lakh for the parcel, which was said to contain dollars, but he never received it, following which he informed the police.
{{/usCountry}}Probing into the complaint, police traced the accused to Delhi with the help of the phone numbers used to contact Singh.
Superintendent of police (Cyber) Ketan Bansal said the accused had duped several people in a similar manner. “The accused would create social media accounts using fake female identities and approach Indian citizens. The unwary people who would start communicating with them and eventually fall in their trap of paying customs fee for receiving gifts from abroad,” he added.
“In another case, the victim shared private pictures with the cheaters, who extorted money through blackmail,” said Bansal, while appealing to residents not to trust strangers on social media and fall for such false claims.