3 African nationals dupe Chandigarh resident of Rs 8.72 lakh, held

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 2

Three African nationals have been arrested by the Cyber Crime Investigation Cell of the UT police for befriending a city resident on Facebook and allegedly duping him of Rs8.72 lakh.

The suspects have been identified as Gideon Sebastian (42), Clement Aful (33) and Moise Kei (30), who were residing in Delhi.

The police have seized 23 mobile phones, 40 ATM cards of various banks, eight bank passbooks, four cheque books, five WiFi hotspots, a dongle and four laptops.

The complainant, Yashveer Singh, of Mani Majra had received a friend request on Facebook from an account of Tina Francis, who claimed to be a UK resident. The victim accepted the friend request and the duo started chatting and even shared their mobile numbers. The victim was cheated with the lure of expensive gifts on the pretext of which the suspects managed to get a total of Rs8.72 lakh transferred to different bank accounts. The police said the suspects used to create fake Facebook accounts by using pictures of different girls. The suspects then used to target gullible people by sending them friend requests.

The victims who fell in their trap were convinced that they would receive expensive gifts. The victims then received calls from the suspects posing as custom officers, who made them transfer money for getting the clearance for the parcels.

The police said the suspects used to target people across India and in a case, the victim was also blackmailed after he sent his objectionable pictures to the fraudsters.

23 mobiles, 40 ATM cards seized

The police have seized 23 mobile phones, 40 ATM cards of various banks, eight bank passbooks, four cheque books, five WiFi hotspots, a dongle and four laptops.

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