Pune: A Nigerian man was arrested from New Delhi by Pune police for allegedly duping a 65-year-old man, a widower from Thergaon, of Rs 18.50 lakh under the pretext of marriage with a woman based in Syria. He came into contact with the woman through a matrimonial site.
Later, the woman claimed her father left behind several properties and she sent them the gifts, and property documents. Other accused persons called up the complainant pretending to be from Customs department, RBI officers and asked him to pay charges for NOC and the complainant deposited the amount in various accounts.
The complainant, a retired government officer, lodged an FIR with Wakad police in October against the Syria-based woman and an unidentified man.
Sleuths from the Cyber Crime Cell of Pune Police identified the suspect as John Oriyakose. Last week a team led by Assistant Police Inspector Sagar Panmand arrested him from Tilaknagar area in Delhi. The police said he had come to India in 2014 on a tourist visa and got four extensions to stay here.
DCP (Cyber Cell) Sudhir Hiremath said, “Preliminary investigations revealed that the arrested accused is involved in lottery and job frauds using 30 bank accounts and cheated people of over Rs one crore. We have got the accounts frozen. We seized eight mobile phones, one laptop, 34 SIM cards, 27 debit cards, three pen drives, four Internet dongles from his possession. The accused has been handed over to the Wakad police station for investigation.”
The investigating team included Police Inspector Deepak Lagad and police personnel Amit Avchare, Yogesh Wavhal, Rajkumar Jaba, Bhaskar Bharti, Shirish Gawde, Nitin Chandne, Atul Lokhande, Najuka Hulawale, Santosh Jadhav, Deepak Bhosale, Ajit Kurhe, Prasad Potdar and Jyoti Diwane.
