Gang who cheated people through Fb, WhatsApp busted

Prateek Chauhan

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 17

Cyber Cell has busted a criminal syndicate of cheats and arrested  Diarra Mallick alias Frank (from Ivory Coast), Okwuji Israel (Nigerian) and his friend, Rina (name changed), who used to befriend users via Facebook, most being women and induced them to transfer money in the pretext of sending high value gifts and foreign currency from overseas.

The crooks used to impersonate as foreigners, mostly successful entrepreneurs and businessmen through fake IDs to impress the women through Facebook, Messenger and WhatsApp, and convince them to transfer money for clearance of gifts at airport sent by them, said DCP.

Vineeta (name changed) stated in the FIR that sometime ago, she has received a friend request on Facebook of some John Harry, who pretended to be working as an account manager with BMW at Glasgow, Scotland. One day, he told her that he has sent high value gifts and foreign currency for her which is stuck at Mumbai airport for custom clearance. Subsequently, she paid around Rs 6.40 lakh in four installments to various cheats impersonating as customs and airport officials to clear the gifts and foreign currency amounting to 50,000 pounds, he said.