The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Nigerian fraud: ‘money mules’ held

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Tuesday, Jun 23, 2009
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Nigerian fraud: ‘money mules’ held

Staff Reporter

Two Indians unwittingly help kingpin transfer money online

Nigerian offers commission for using woman’s bank account
Deposits the money fraudulently earned, transfers it online to Nigeria

HYDERABAD: Two ‘money mules’ — also known as money transfer agents — hailing from Mumbai, who allegedly aided a Nigerian in duping a Hyderabadi businessman of Rs. 98 lakh, were arrested along with the foreigner by the city police on Monday.

Not a single rupee belonging to the Hyderabadi from Karkhana could be recovered, but the case should be an eye-opener to all Indians falling prey to Nigerian fraud, the Hyderabad Detective Department DCP, R.S. Praveen Kumar, said at a press conference. Twenty-year-old jobless woman Tanya from Mumbai said she did not suspect the intentions of the Nigerian Chux, whom she met in chat room, when he asked her to open a bank account, offering her a job.

‘Visa processing’

Chux led her to believe that he was into visa processing business and received money from clients towards the processing charges.

“He told me the customers’ money would be deposited in my account and I would be paid five person commission of it,” she explained at the media conference.

She also introduced her friend Hayath Ali Shaik, another unemployed youth, to Chux. But Chux used their bank accounts to get deposited the money he was relieving his Advance Fee Fraud victims, the DCP said. He would get the money later transferred to Nigeria online. Thus, he was using Tanya and Shaik as money mules, helping him legally transfer the money he had fraudulently secured from India to his country.

Chux, along with a Nigerian woman, approached the Hyderabadi businessman in May with a proposal to invest Rs. 10 crore in the real estate ventures he had taken up on city outskirts.

They lured him to deposit one lakh rupees initially in their account.

Hoping to secure huge investments from the couple, he went on depositing the money. The couple stopped contacting him when he started insisting on return of Rs. 98 lakh he had paid them prompting to lodge a complaint. On finding that the money was deposited in the accounts of Tanya and Shaik in Mumbai, the police party nabbed them.

Based on their confession, they arrested Chux’s cousin, Ojugbeli Henry Onyeka, on charge of helping Chux.

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