The Hindu : New Delhi News : Two Nigerians held in "black dollar'' scam

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Nov 23, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

Two Nigerians held in "black dollar'' scam

Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI: Two Nigerian nationals who allegedly cheated a 49-year-old man of over Rs. 28 lakhs promising him a cut of 27.5 lakh dollars for helping them transfer a huge amount of money left unclaimed in a foreign bank account have been arrested by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Crime Branch.

According to the Deputy Commissioner of Police (EOW), Prabhakar, Prakash Holla, a resident of Andhra Pradesh, recently lodged a complaint alleging that some Nigerian nationals had cheated him by promising to give him 1.1 crore dollars, a portion of the money left unclaimed in the Bank of Bebin.

Accident

This September, Mr. Holla received an e-mail from one Joe Williams stating that a person, who had died in an accident, had left a huge amount of unclaimed money in the bank where he worked. To help him get the money transferred to his name through "diplomatic channel, Williams offered a big cut to Mr. Holla.

At his instance, Mr. Holla met his assistant, Emeka Ukanou, at Hotel Asian International on Janpath Lane in the Capital on October 17, who took 5,800 dollars from him as diplomatic fees for transferring the money to India. Emeka introduced him to one Yusuf Ubanwa, claiming that he was a diplomat. Yusuf took 1,000 dollars for courier charges. Subsequently, the accused took out some black sheets claiming that they were genuine dollar notes and that the black coating on them could be removed using a chemical. He then asked Mr. Holla to pay 1 lakh dollar for the chemical required to clean the "black dollars" worth 1.1 crore dollars.

Chemical.

But, Mr. Holla agreed to pay only 55,000 dollars. On October 29, he paid Rs. 24.4 lakhs to Emeka, who left the place saying he would come back with the chemical. However, Emeka later called up Mr. Holla and claimed that he had been arrested by the police. In panic, Mr. Holla then called Williams in Nigeria, at whose instance one Justice, claiming to be a U.N. employee, met him and took Rs. 1 lakh to get Emeka released from the police custody.

Two days later, Justice told the complainant that Emeka had been deported to Nigeria and the chemical seized. On November 9, he again came to meet two persons Oliver and Ozorokoni at William's instance, who demanded 50,000 dollars for the chemical. Suspecting that he was being taken for a ride, Mr. Holla then lodged a complaint with the EOW on November 19. Subsequently, a trap was laid and Oliver and Ozorokoni were arrested from a Karol Bagh hotel. The police recovered forged United Nations identity cards and a large number of "black sheets" from their possession.

Internet users

"The incident occurred due to unsolicited response to a spam e-mail. As a precaution, all the Internet users should have a spam-block installed to prevent such mails. Also, they should not send any reply to such mails, otherwise the email address of the senders would become a part of the databank being developed by cheats operating from different parts of the world," said Mr. Prabhakar, adding that a hunt was on for the other accused.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

New Delhi