Five arrested for running fake lottery scheme

NEW DELHI: Delhi Police have busted an online international lottery scam and arrested four Nigerians and one Indian agent on Friday.

NEW DELHI: Delhi Police have busted an online international lottery scam and arrested four Nigerians and one Indian agent on Friday.

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Police said the gang was wanted in more than 500 cases of cheating and duping job seekers.

Investigators said that in order to make their online lottery scheme look genuine, the accused were illegally using the name of ‘Nokia’, a Finnish multinational communications and information technology company. They used terms like “Nokia award” to fleece potential clients, said police.

A total of 996 SIM cards — the largest such seizure in the history of Delhi police — were recovered from the accused. All the SIM cards were procured on fake IDs. Apart from that, 24 SIM cards of Nigeria, 49 mobiles, seven laptops, 13 data cards, six Nigerian passports, six bank passbooks, one car have been recovered from the accused.

A senior investigator said that three of the arrested Nigerians had come to India in 2009. They were illegally staying in India as their VISAs had expired long ago. The fourth Nigerian, a woman, arrived in India two years ago.

Rishi Pal Singh, deputy commissioner of police (east), said the five accused were arrested following investigation into a cheating case registered filed by one Bhupinderjit Singh,a resident of east Delhi’s Hargobind Enclave. Bhupinderjit was duped of Rs 60,000 by the gang who impersonated themselves as officials of an international online lottery company.

According to the DCP, the gang used to send SMSe in bulk on random mobile numbers.

In May this year, Bhupinderjit responded to one such SMS. The fraudsters contacted him through emails and telephonic calls. They sent him the details of the lottery scheme.

“Bhupinderjit was asked to deposit various mandatory charges like taxes, legal fees, currency exchange charges, so that the winning amount could be released. They made him pay Rs 60,000 but didn’t release the winning money,” Rishi Pal said, adding an FIR was registered after the complainant realised that he was being cheated.