The Nagari police from the district on Friday night arrested a Ugandan national, identified as Nelson Hoglar alias John (30), from an apartment at Rajpur Khurd locality in New Delhi on the charges of extracting ₹13 lakh from a 27-year-old woman from Nagari town, who works as a Sangamitra programme volunteer.
Deputy SP (Puttur) T.D. Yashwant told The Hindu that in October last year, the woman received an online communique asking her to deposit ₹15,000 to redeem a ₹2.5 crore lottery she had won. She made an online deposit as instructed. Till June 2021, the woman had deposited a total of ₹13 lakh into various accounts as required by the accused. “Each time, the accused reportedly used to confuse the woman with deadlines for making an online payment, jumping of which would result in the woman losing her previous deposits. As this trick worked, it led to a series of online payments from the victim,” the police officer said.
In this process, the woman hailing from a poor financial background had sold away her jewellery, taken cash several times from her husband, who works as a lorry driver, besides taking hand loans from neighbours, relatives, and lenders at a high interest rate. Realising that she was duped, the woman had reportedly attempted suicide once in recent months. With the help of well-wishers, she had finally approached the Nagari police in September this year.
Superintendent of Police S. Senthil Kumar formed a special team with to probe the matter. “After a grueling two-month-long investigation with the help of technical analysis, the roots of the fraud were traced to an address located in New Delhi,” Mr. Yashwant said.
A special police party from Nagari rushed to New Delhi and arrested the accused in coordination with the Delhi police. It took the police four hours to enter the premises where the accused was residing. “Our police broke open the gate lock to gain entry into their portion. A laptop and some mobile phones were seized. The involvement of a big network is suspected in this matter. He would be brought to Nagari in a couple of days after completing the legal procedures,” the DSP said.
