Romance Scam: Nigerian man nabbed in India for cheating women by posing as an American on Facebook
35-year-old Omeleze who hails from Asaba, Delta State pretended to be an American soldier on Facebook and
lured victims expressing ‘his love' and extorted money in the name of
investments.
On his arrest, the cops
found a whopping 5 lakh mobile numbers and one lakh email IDs from his
laptop which was seized. According to the police, the
accused was living in Mehrauli, New Delhi. Preliminary investigation
revealed that Fred came to India in 2012 and was staying in different
localities in New Delhi. After his original visit visa expired two
months after arriving in India, he prepared a fake Indian visa sticker
and pasted it on his passport for presenting it for renting a house.
Inspector Md. Riyazuddin said the suspect created several Facebook profiles by putting photos of smart looking
Americans and used to chat with Indian women online after searching for
their profiles. In the case for which he was arrested, Fred had trapped
the female victim by introducing himself as one ‘Benson’, an American soldier serving in Afghanistan.
After several
conversations, he told her that he wanted to come to India and settle
with her by investing his savings, which he told was about five million
US dollars. The victim later received a call from a lady who introduced
herself as a manager in the customs department of the airport in New
Delhi. She was told that ‘Mr. Benson’ was apprehended by the customs
department for bringing US Dollars and gold and diamond jewellery.
At
the same time, Fred, as ‘Benson’ also rang her up and informed her that
if she pay the taxes as told, the customs officer would release his
money and jewellery which they would spend in their future life. Believing
him, the victim transferred Rs.2.5 lakh in the bank accounts provided
by the accused. Later she realized that she was cheated.
He was brought
to Hyderabad and was remanded to judicial custody on Wednesday. The
investigators found 50,00,00 mobile numbers, one lakh email ids of
Indians from the seized laptops.
