The Delhi police’s special cell has arrested five people, including a woman, for allegedly cheating prospective brides through popular matrimonial websites.
While claiming to have busted two such gangs, the police has arrested Joseph Irabor Bhahemen (26) and Bawo Hilary Omagbemi (35), who are permanent residents of Nigeria, and Nagaland native Leniya Magh, 26. They all were currently residing in Gurgaon.
The gang had cheated a Hyderabad-based woman to the tune of Rs 48.75 lakh over the past few months after befriending her through a matrimonial website, the police added.
In another case, the police arrested Nigerian Henry Chima Anidebe, 30, who disclosed that other gang members were using “voice changers” to modulate male voices into those of a woman to pose as a customs officer.
According to the police, the criminals were using VoIP and other innovative techniques to execute this novel kind of organised cheating using an online services platform. A police official said the special cell had received information about abuse of “online matrimonial websites” like Bharatmatrominy, simplymarry and shaadi.com etc. by organised criminal gangs.
“The cheats had created and were operating fictitious profiles, posing as wealthy NRIs working in highly-remunerative assignments/professions in foreign locations,” the official said, adding that the cheats were reported to have brought in a large number of UK, US and other foreign SIM cards, which were used from within India on international roaming to mask their real locations and identities.
The police said that a gang of cheats, including a woman, had been in contact with a Hyderabad-based female since March with a fake identity of Dr Abhishek Mohan on Bharatmatrominy website. “Dr Abhishek Mohan had expressed interest to the victim for a matrimonial alliance. The profile as created showed ‘Dr Abhishek Mohan’ as an orthopaedic surgeon, working with the United Nations, currently in Iraq on an assignment. The victim was told that Dr Mohan was a UK citizen of Indian origin,” the official said.
After gaining trust and confidence of the victim, Dr Mohan told the woman that his assignment was nearing completion and that he would be coming to India in April and before that, he would send gold, jewels, medical equipment and some personal belongings to her address.
The parcel reached India on April 7 and the victim received a call from a “customs inspector” stating that she had to pay customs clearance fees for the parcel, which was worth several crores. She spoke about it to Dr Mohan over phone and he asked her to pay the fees and assured her that he would return her money upon arrival.
The police said that after this amount was paid, the person posing as customs inspector demanded more money on various grounds like “money laundering clearance, anti-terrorist funding clearance” for which the victim kept on borrowing money from others and also availed of loans and paid the amounts in various bank accounts stated to be belonging to customs agents as told by Dr Mohan.
After depositing over Rs 48 lakh, the woman again got a demand from a person posing as woman customs inspector for Rs 75 lakh as refundable tax. The woman realised that she was being cheated and got an FIR lodged at cyber crime police station in Hyderabad.
In another similar case, investigations led to arrest of Henry Chima Anidebe. The modus operandi was similar and the victim was asked to deposit money in a bank account by a person posing as customs officer. She was asked to deposit Rs 86 lakh and she got suspicious about the whole affair and lodged an FIR with the police and the case was transferred to special cell.
