The Hindu : New Delhi News : Two held for duping dozen by lottery bait

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Wednesday, Dec 05, 2007
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New Delhi

Two held for duping dozen by lottery bait

Staff Reporter

Offered people a million pounds through e-mails

Police claim to have seized Rs.70,000 and
two mobile phones from the duo
Search on to trace Nigerian and his Indian accomplice who masterminded the fraud

NEW DELHI: Two young men who allegedly cheated over a dozen people by offering them “lottery prizes” worth 10 lakh pounds through e-mails have been arrested by the South Delhi police. A hunt has been launched for the masterminds, a Nigerian and his Indian accomplice.

Manoj Sauguna lodged a complaint with the Greater Kailash police on November 26 alleging that he had been cheated of Rs.1.47 lakh.

The trap

He recently received an e-mail claiming that he had won a lottery worth 10 lakh pounds. He was, however, told that to claim the lottery amount he had to complete some documents and tax formalities, for which he would have to submit Rs.2 lakh in an account of the Greater Kailash branch of a multinational bank.

He was also asked to keep the news about winning the lottery to himself lest any other person might stake a claim to it.

Lured by the offer, an unsuspecting Manoj deposited Rs.1.47 lakh in the bank account but through media reports learnt about malicious e-mails offering similar prizes being sent to a large number of people. He then reported the matter to the police.

Based on the complaint, the police traced the bank account holder, Prashant (24) alias Vickey, to his rented Safdarjung Enclave accommodation and arrested him along with his roommate and relative Abhay (22).

The police claim to have seized Rs.70,000 in cash and two mobile phones from them.

Call-centre employees

During interrogation, Prashant disclosed that he was from Assam and his relative was from Punjab. While he worked in a Karol Bagh call-centre, Abhay was with a Gurgaon-based call-centre.

The police said that about 18 months ago the duo came in contact with Chaman Preet Singh and a Nigerian national, Success Victor, who initiated them into the malicious e-mail business.

They asked Prashant and Abhay to open two bank accounts at Greater Kailash and Gurgaon. At their instance, the accused sent e-mails offering lottery prizes to people, over a dozen of whom landed in the trap and were cheated.

Investigations revealed that money was sent to the bank account of the accused from Puducherry, Bangalore, Mumbai, Mysore and Pune. The accused would immediately withdraw the money and distribute it among themselves and the alleged masterminds, who deposited their share in the Gurgaon bank account.

Bank accounts seized

The police have seized both the bank accounts and are trying to trace the Nigerian and his accomplice.

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