: The City police on Saturday arrested a Nigerian national, Franklin Desmond, who duped a woman of Rs. 7 lakh, in a property sale deal.
The police, last week, had received a complaint from a woman based in Thrissur alleging that she had been cheated by a foreign national. The complainant, Sashikala, who works in a travel agency, had posted an advertisement on a prominent buying and selling website on the sale of a resort at Varkala.
She had received a call from Desmond, who posed as a Ghana national currently doing BBA at a private college at Pune.
He told her that his “boss,” one Dr Williams, was interested in buying a resort and asked her to mail photographs of the property she intended to sell. She had mailed the photographs accordingly.
The accused informed her that his boss was willing to buy the property for a sum of Rs 15 crore and asked her to mail the copies of documents related to the property.
After she mailed the documents, an agent of Dr Williams visited the complainant’s house and handed over a casket containing bundles of dollars which had inscriptions United Nations Relief Fund. As a fee for transporting the money, she handed over Rs 2.50 lakh as per prior agreement, Circle Inspector, Thampanoor, Suresh B Nair said in a release.
The accused then told her that a chemical used to erase the inscription had to be procured from Sri Lanka at a cost of Rs 80 lakh. The woman transferred Rs 5 lakh as initial payment to bank accounts in Mumbai and Imphal. A few days after, the Nigerian national informed the woman that the agent who had handed over the money was arrested by Immigration officials in Mumbai and that he needed another Rs. 4 lakh to get him released.
The woman developed suspicion about the conduct of the Nigerian national and informed the Thampanoor police.
The Circle Inspector said as per the instruction given by city police Commissioner H. Venkestesh the woman was asked to contact Franklin. As per her instruction, the accused reached the city to collect the amount. A police team that was waiting for his arrival at the airport arrested him, the inspector said.
He is accused of duping a woman of Rs.7 lakh
