Naga women conned with i-phone, lottery money lure by Nigerian man

New Delhi: Police have busted a criminal gang led by a Delhi-based Nigerian man which cheated gullible Naga women of over Rs 35 lakh by falsely promising cheap i-phones and prize money for winning lotteries.

The racket was recently busted by Nagaland police with the help of their Delhi counterparts after a number of women filed multiple complaints at a police station in Dimapur about having been defrauded of their hard-earned money by a "foreigner" who contacted them over the internet, willing to sell them high-end electronic gadgets at a cheap rates and promising them prize money for lotteries they were told they had won.

Investigators claim, while probing the case, they came across a smart modus operandi as part of which the gang used multiple bank accounts "sold" by locals to the  Nigerian.

He used to ask his victims to deposit the money in these accounts to claim the prize and later withdrew it from various ATMs.

A Nagaland police team, which recently travelled to Delhi to go deeper into the case and arrest the kingpin identified as C Nwaneri (34), has filed at least three FIRs and found so far these women have been duped of over Rs 35 lakh.

Nwaneri was assisted in the crime by three locals, including a chef working at an eatery in a popular Delhi Mall, all of whom "sold" their accounts to the foreigner for Rs 22-25 thousands.

"We have seized 42 SIM cards, nine ATM cards, six phones, five bank passbooks and a laptop after searches were carried out at the residence of Nwaneri who lives in Bawana area of Delhi. It looks to be gang operating to dupe people, especially innocent women from Nagaland, with the help of multiple people from places like Delhi and nearby areas," Investigating Officer (IO) of the case and IPS probationer Dinesh Gupta said.

Gupta said since the initial part of the case was cracked, more women from Nagaland have come forward to complain about having been cheated the same way.