Cyber fraud mastermind held in Greater Noida for duping women on matrimonial sites

Interrogations revealed the alleged involvement of Tanvir, who works as a sales manager for a telecom company in Tughlaqabad area of Delhi. He is a native of Madhubani district in Bihar and has a diploma in computer science. Police recovered three mobile phones and 16 debit and credit cards from his possession. His account details further show transactions worth over ₹4crore in the past four months

A 23-year-old man was arrested by the cyber cell team of Gautam Budh Nagar Police on Saturday night from his residence in Greater Noida for allegedly being involved in duping over 300 women through a matrimonial website.

The suspect, 23-year-old Tanvir Hussain, in police custody on Sunday. (Sunil Ghosh/ HT)

According to police, the arrested accused, Tanvir Hussain, was the financier for a group of men from African countries who are known to befriend women through matrimonial websites and would then get them to transfer money on some pretext.

“We have leads that there are about 10 to 12 nationals from various African countries involved in defrauding women through matrimonial sites. We started investigating them after the cyber cell received a complaint from a woman in Meerut last month who had transferred over ₹60 lakh to one such man” said Rita Yadav, in charge, cyber cell.

Following this complaint, a Nigerian national, Garuba Galumje, who hails from Lagos, was arrested on May 27 from south Delhi’s Kishangarh. Police had also seized a forged Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) identity card from his possession, along with other documents such as passport, seven mobile phones, 15 photocopies of documents, which included forged letters in the names of Bank of Thailand, National Bank of Dubai, the Interpol, and the US Department of State.

Interrogations revealed the alleged involvement of Tanvir, who works as a sales manager for a telecom company in Tughlaqabad area of Delhi. He is a native of Madhubani district in Bihar and has a diploma in computer science. “We have recovered three mobile phones and 16 debit and credit cards from his possession. His account details further show transactions worth over ₹4crore in the past four months”, said Yadav.

According to officials from the cyber cell, the African nationals would befriend women on matrimonial websites with the promise of marriage. Once they gained the trust of these women, they would usually concoct a personal emergency situation and ask large sums of money to be transferred to the account of an official from either the customs department or the Reserve Bank of India in the name of some taxes or duties.

Police said that the money transferred by the victims went to various bank accounts managed by Tanvir, who would deduct 3% as commission and give the rest of the amount in cash to the foreign nationals. Police suspect that more than 300 women have been defrauded by this gang over the past few years. Officials are on the lookout for other accomplices.

A complaint has been registered against the suspect under Section 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating), 471 (fraudulent use of a document), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 34 (common criminal intention) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and under provisions of the Information Technology (IT) Act, police added.

Police said that people should avoid getting trapped by such cyber criminals and never transfer money to people they have never met. Officials added that due to various reasons such as fear or shame, many women also refrain from complaining. However, they should come forward and lodge complaints, police added.