Nigerian arrested for duping Hyderabad resident

Hyderabad: Cyberabad police arrested a Nigerian, who chea-ted a city resident of Rs 75 lakh, after giving a box containing black paper bundles.

The suspect, David Fle-tcher alias Austin Ese, fleeced the victim continuously for two years convincing him that a chemical solvent would turn the black papers into real American dollars and it will become one lakh US dollar. He also used various other techniques to make the victim pay several times.

Mohd Ibrahim from Hasmathpet mortgaged his father’s property and took several lakhs of rupees to pay the money. However, he lost '75 lakh to the fraudster and due to the loss he was also kicked out by his family.

The scam began after the victim, Ibrahim rec-eived a mail from the accused, who claimed that he was a medical doctor named Mike and wanted to set up an office in Hyderabad.

The accused also promised that he will deliver some money for that. “Later the victim received a call that a consignment in his name had reached Delhi. He went to Delhi and got the consignment, a metal container, wherein it was stated that it contained $1 lakh and the victim paid '1 lakh and brought it to his home,” said Mr Naveen Kumar, Cyberabad OSD, Crimes. But when the victim opened the container it was filled with black papers of the size of a Dollar.

“Mark later came to Hyderabad and washed three notes with some solution and they appe-ared to be genuine US Dollars. He promised the victim that he will send cleaning solution for ‘de-blackening’ of all the notes,” the officer said.

Mark was in fact using a sleight of hand and had replaced a few notes in the container with original notes. The victim believed him and wanted more of the cleaning sol-ution. The victim later paid several lakhs for the cleaning solution by depositing the money in different bank accounts. However, he never got it.

“The suspect called the victim again pretending to be a FBI officer and informed him that Mark had been arrested by FBI for carrying an illegal chemical. Later, the victim, who was asked to bribe the officials to re-lease Mark, again paid lakhs of rupees,” said the official.