Gang dupes woman doctor of Rs 13.59 lakh, 3 Nigerians among 5 held
Mumbai: A 51-year-old woman doctor from the western suburbs of Mumbai lost an amount of Rs 13.59 lakh to a gang of 5 people who cheated her on the pretext of sending gifts. The gang comprising of three Nigerians and two Indians, have been arrested from New Delhi by the cyber cell of Mumbai police.
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The police stated that the gang first contacted the doctor via Facebook through a fake profile claiming to be a doctor from Italy. They cheated her into making payments under the pretext of sending gifts.
According to a media report in The Indian Express, the incident took place between the months, May and June, said the police officers.
The accused in the name of Marco Kelvin Lucas sent a friend request to the doctor initially. An officer said, "As the bio read that he is a doctor from Italy, she accepted the request following which the two started chatting."
Eventually, they told the doctor that they are sending her 85,000 Euros, watches and handbags as gifts. However, after that, a woman from their gang contacted the doctor and claimed that the bag which contained these valuables had been seized.
The deputy commissioner of police Rashmi Karandikar told the daily, "Under the pretext of paying custom duty fees, custom penalty, insurance fee and conversion procedure fee, the frauds made her pay Rs 13.59 lakh."
Following the incident, the doctor filed a complaint with the police station. A case was registered against the accused under relevant sections of cheating and cheating by impersonation.
The deputy commissioner added, "With the help of technical evidence, they managed to trace one of the culprits, identified as Pankaj Singh (24)."
And the names of the other accused were revealed eventually during the interrogation and all of them were arrested from Delhi. The four accused have been identified as Chijjioke Desmond Iheka (38), Kelechi Jonathan Dike (44) Chidozie Morris (35) and Sarfaraz Ansari (35).
The police also seized 25 mobile phones, four laptops, one tablet and 10 debit cards.
An officer further stated, "We have learnt that they had similarly created several profiles on Facebook while they have duped several persons using similar modus operandi. We are trying to identify the victims and subsequently we will check whether the complaint is made at the concerned police station as it will help us in detecting more cases."
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