Four men, including two Nigerians, held for cheating NRI

Four men, including two men of Nigerian descent, were arrested for cheating an NRI of lakhs through an international phishing racket, the Crime Branch said on Saturday.

Four men, including two men of Nigerian descent, were arrested for cheating an NRI of lakhs through an international phishing racket, the Crime Branch said on Saturday.

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The police said Moses Ojeaga, and Idowu Osho, both of whom are residents of south Delhi’s Hauz Rani, and their local contacts — Narender Sharma, 38, and Gurmeet Kohli, 46, — had gotten their unsuspecting victim hooked by sending him spam emails advertising a Canada-based licorice seed supply chain in December, 2010.

“On May 9, the victim, who is a resident of Chennai, approached us with a complaint, alleging that he had been cheated of R45.5 lakh by a faceless gang which had asked him to supply licorice seed from India to their company in Canada and promised him a huge profit margin in return,” said Sanjay Kumar Jain, DCP (Crime).

“Two persons, including one who introduced himself as Roshan Verma, met the victim gave him a packet of 100 licorice seeds in return for R43.5 lakh. According to email instructions from company’s proprietor Terry, the complainant then waited for one Mr Bernard to get double the money he had invested,” said a senior police officer.

But Bernard never came and the complainant approached the police after realising that he had been cheated.