Hyderabad: A Nigerian who impersonated a US Army soldier and cheated a city resident of Rs 1 lakh was arrested by the cyber crime police on Monday. The accused was identified as Nwamba Raymond Ifeanyi, a Pune resident from Nigeria.
According to the cops, Nwamba impersonated a woman and chatted online with the complainant after contacting him through social media and sent him a message after some time.
Nwamba, pretending to be a woman, told the complainant that ‘she’ was working in the US Army as a soldier. ‘She’ stated that ‘she’ had found a lot of dollars while serving in the army. ‘She’ could not take the money where ‘she’ was posted, and wanted to share it with the complainant. ‘She’ would send the money in a parcel, and promised to come to India to retrieve it.
The following day, the complainant received a call stating that he had received a parcel but it was stuck at the Mumbai airport and he needed to pay a ‘Customs fee’ of Rs 30,500 and Rs 75,000 for an ‘anti-terrorism certificate’ to recover it. Else, the box would be seized. The complainant transferred the money. When he received another call demanding more money, he went to the police.
Cyber crime inspector Ch. Gangadhar said Nwamba used to create multiple social media accounts and contacted the victim on the pretext of friendship, being a soldier or even proferring love.
When someone fell into the trap, he would offer to send a valuable parcel. He would then impersonate officials and demand money to clear the parcel. The inspector said Nwamba had even created a fake courier website link and tracking ID to show the victim that the parcel was on the way. Sometimes Nwamba impersonated a courier delivery executive.
