Chennai Police arrested two siblings from Delhi for allegedly cheating a senior citizen of Rs 14 lakh. The brothers used a woman’s voice online to persuade the old man, who is in the real estate business, that she was a rich woman from London looking to buy land in Chennai, police said.
Police identified the accused as Majid Salmani and his brother Shanu from Delhi, who were working with a Nigerian national identified as Emmanuel. Police said Emmanuel, who was the leader of a gang engaged in fraud, was on the run.
According to police, the old man lodged a complaint before Chennai police commissioner stating online fraud. In his complaint, the old man said a woman, calling herself Eva Williams from London, befriended him over WhatsApp.
Police said the woman pretended to be rich and asked to buy a plot of land in Chennai with a promise that she will soon visit India to see the plot herself. The woman called the complainant one day and said she had flown to India but was being held by customs as she had a draft of Rs 5 crore to buy the plot, police added.
Police further said the woman told him that only if an excise tax of Rs 14 lakh was paid, the authorities will release her, and she asked the man to pay on her behalf promising to repay him when she arrived in Chennai. The man stated that he transferred Rs 14.62 lakh to six bank account numbers the woman sent, police added.
Following this, the man was unable to contact the woman as the phone number was switched off, police said. Realising this was fraud, the man contacted the authorities to help him recover the amount as soon as possible.
The cyber crime cell registered a case and examined bank accounts where the man had transferred the money. Police said it was found that fraudsters took the money from an ATM in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh. Following this, special police personnel rushed to Aligarh and collected CCTV footage.
Police said they traced the mobile phone number of the fraudsters who used the bank accounts following the brothers were arrested for fraud. During the interrogation, it was found that Majid and Shanu were involved in fraudulent activity in Uttar Pradesh and, when Majid was arrested in 2019 in a fraud case, he formed an acquaintance with a Nigerian, identified as Emmanuel, in Tihar jail, police added.
According to investigators, Emmanuel was staying in Delhi and engaging in fraudulent activities, especially picking random numbers and talking to people over WhatsApp by pretending to be a woman.
Police said the brothers were only involved in withdrawing the fraudulent money from the bank account and had paid Emmanuel commission accordingly. A total of 10 debit cards, three mobile phones and SIM cards were seized from the brothers, police added.
Police have also seized Rs 51,000, four laptops, 10 mobile phones and nine SIM cards from Emmanuel’s apartment.
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