The Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court in Egmore has convicted two Nigerian nationals and sentenced them undergo imprisonment, after holding them guilty of offences including collecting money in a ‘gift parcel’ scam and cheating a woman in Perambur, Chennai.
According to the prosecution, in July 2021, a 45-year-old woman, who was separated from her husband and residing with her mother and her son, had registered her profile on a matrimonial portal for remarriage. She received an ‘interest request’ from a person, Mohammed Salim, who claimed to be a doctor in the Netherlands. Later, he informed her that he had sent a gift parcel worth several lakhs of rupees to her, and said, to claim the gift, she needed to pay money into various bank accounts towards ‘registration and conversion charges’.
The next morning, a woman called the victim on the phone and demanded that she pay for the parcel. Initially, the victim paid ₹28,000 towards ‘parcel registration’ charges. However, later, the woman called the victim and said that she had scanned the parcel, and there was foreign currency inside it, and so she had to pay penalty charges of ₹77,000 to the bank. Subsequently, she called again on the same day and asked for conversion charges for an amount of 20,000 Euros amounting to ₹1,80,000.
After this payment, the woman called and demanded ₹95,000 as charges to upgrade the victim’s bank account. When the victim refused to make this payment, another person, who claimed to be Dr. Salim’s brother, Asif, called her and said his brother had attempted to end his life. He began to blackmail her saying if she did not remit the money, they would land in India to prosecute her.
The victim then approached the police, and lodged a complaint. She said she had lost a total amount of ₹4.5 lakh, as she had borrowed money and remitted ₹40,000 and ₹55,000 to yet another bank account.
Police said that during the investigation, it was found that fraudsters misused the matrimonial website and created fake profiles and used four bank accounts and three Indian mobile numbers as well as a few foreign numbers for committing the offences, and had swindled ₹4.5 lakh from the victim, in what is known as a ‘gift parcel’ scam. Investigations revealed that the mobile numbers used by fraudsters were obtained through identity theft. The calls made by them were traced to Uttam Nagar, New Delhi.
A special team of the Cyber Crime Wing ,led by Inspector T. Vinodh Kumar went to New Delhi and conducted investigations in and around Uttam Nagar, Vipin Garden, Bhagwati Garden and Mohan Garden. CCTV footage of ATMs was received. On analysing the CCTV footage and pinhole camera clippings, the Nigerian nationals were identified.
The police team arrested Paulinus Chikeluo, 31 and Cletus Ikechukwu, 23 in Uttam Nagar, New Delhi. They were brought to Chennai and tried for offences before the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court in Egmore.
At the conclusion of trial, the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate N. Kothandaraj pronounced his judgment and convicted the duo. The convicted persons were sentenced to an imprisonment of five years besides fines of ₹25,000 each.
