The Hindu : New Delhi News : Nigerian nationals arrested

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Aug 25, 2006

New Delhi

New Delhi

Nigerian nationals arrested

Staff Reporter

On charges of duping people by making fraudulent offers through e-mails

NEW DELHI: Two Nigerian nationals have been arrested by the New Delhi police on charges of duping people of lakhs of rupees by making fraudulent offers through e-mails.

D.S. Ramchandra Raju, a resident of Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, recently lodged a complaint alleging that one Samuel Sowoto had cheated him of over Rs. 15 lakhs.

According to the complaint, the Nigerian national contacted Mr. Raju through e-mail and offered him to pay 8,50,000 dollars as gift. He then directed him to collect it from his secretary, Collins Aneke, a legal practitioner who was purportedly at Benin in West Africa.

However, on the pretext of getting the money transferred from Benin to India, he extracted over Rs. 15 lakhs from Mr. Raju as the expenditure on the legal formalities involved.

While the police were trying to trace the culprit, on Tuesday he again contacted Mr. Raju and asked him to meet near Chanakya Cinema for the next instalment as required for the "legal formalities".

Subsequently, the police laid a trap and arrested him and his accomplice. The accused were identified as Felix Awatefe and Salem.

During interrogation, they disclosed that they had been living here at Saket in South Delhi. The two allegedly confessed to having duped Mr. Raju of over Rs. 15 lakhs in four instalments that they collected from him in Delhi.

They revealed that their gang leader was Canin, also a Nigerian national.

They also identified two other gang members, Yahya and Toyo, who are at present in Nigeria. They also collected money from the victims in India at Canin's instance.

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