Hyderabad Police arrests Nigerian in online gift fraud case

Hyderabad (IANS)| Hyderabad Police has arrested a Nigerian national in connection with an online gift fraud. He, along with four other accused, cheated a person of Rs 1.22 crore. The Cyber Crime Police team arrested 42-year-old Onuigbo Chibuzo Godwin alias Bobby from New Delhi.

According to the police, he maintained fake bank accounts, SMS alert mobile numbers and passed on information about fraudulent transactions in those fake accounts to the main accused persons, Sekuro and Okuchukwu, who were based in Nigeria.

The accused were cheating innocent people on the pretext of gift fraud. Bobby would have received 20 per cent of his share of the credit amount.

Bakayoko Lassina of Ivory Coast (West Africa) and Shoma Purkayastha alias Shoma Prasad Purkayastha of Meghalaya were arrested in February 2023 in the same case. The Nigerian mastermind Bobby has now been arrested. Police seized laptop, mobile phone, sim card, bank passbook and debit card from his possession.

Police said Sekuro and Okuchukwu, based in Nigeria, are absconding.

According to the police, the accused used to create fake Facebook profiles in the name of US/UK citizens and send friend requests to Indians of the opposite sex. Later, after becoming friends, they used to chat on WhatsApp. After a few days of chatting, both became very close friends. After gaining some trust they inform the victims that they are going to send expensive gifts, jewelery etc and later contact the victims with fake mobile numbers pretending to be from Customs and in the name of RBI fee Used to collect money. They persuaded the victims to deposit the amount in the given fake bank accounts.