Dimapur Police arrests two for fraud

The accused under custody of Dimapur  Police. (Morung Photo) 

Ivory Coast national held for running ‘mule accounts’ &  pastors scammed by travel agent
 

Morung Express News
Dimapur | March 16

The Dimapur police arrested two persons last week from Delhi in connection to two different fraud cases. One involved an Ivory Coast national and the other a travel agent in Delhi. 

The Dimapur police told a press today that the Ivory Coast national, identified as Gbamele Alex alias Paul, was arrested on March 13 from Delhi’s Tilak Nagar following an investigation into the online/SMS lottery scam. 

According to the police, an investigation was launched to verify suspected “fraudulent electronic bank transactions and fraudulent ATM withdrawals all over India from bank accounts based in Dimapur.” During the course of the investigation, over a hundred bank accounts, opened in various bank branches in Dimapur, with a history of high value transactions traced to Delhi and other cities, were uncovered. 

Delving deeper, the police traced the local account holders here, based on whose statements, the investigation zeroed in on one man believed to be operating from Delhi. 

The police were told by the account holders here that they were contacted by people, with links to Alex, to open bank accounts against their personal credentials and to hand over the account details, including passbooks, debit cards and SIM cards linked to it, in return for money ranging from Rs 3000-10,000.

These accounts, dubbed by the police as “mule accounts,” were then used to route money to run the online/SMS lottery scam. The operators of such scams forward messages to random phone numbers, that of the recipients becoming lucky winners of lottery jackpots. People, who fall for such tricks, are often asked to make deposits in certain banks accounts as clearance fees to encash the lottery win. Once the advance gets deposited in the accounts provided, the operators sever contact with the victims. 

Queried on the antecedents of the account holders here, the police replied that they turned out to be mostly unemployed women and young students from marginalized sections of the society. 

While stating that it was not an isolated instance of trickery, the police said that the same modus operandi is applied by other fraudsters. 

The police advised the public to be wary of such scams and to immediately file complaints if they come across any person offering to buy banks account details. 

In the other case, one man was arrested from Delhi on March 12 for duping a pastors’ fellowship in Dimapur of over Rs 36 lakhs. The case dates back to 2018 and the money meant for making travel arrangement for a “Holy Land” pilgrimage to Israel in September 2019. 

According to the police, the pastors lodged a complaint in February, stating that they were given fake air tickets and travel itinerary by their travel agent. 

They had approached a Delhi-based travel agency- TripCraving, run by one Ripu Daman Singh, sometime in 2018 to make the travel arrangements. As per the complaint, the agency could not meet the scheduled travel deadline. 

The tour was rescheduled to February 2020 with Singh reportedly assuring that the arrangements will be completed by the end of January. However, the pastors were sent fake air tickets. Singh was asked to refund the money along with 40 passports but he did not comply. 

Based on the complaint, a Dimapur police team arrested Singh from Chander Vihar, West Delhi and brought to Nagaland. They were able to recover the passports but not the money.