Morung Express News
Dimapur | May 11
In a major breakthrough, Dimapur police cracked down on a gang involved in the infamous money laundering racket called by various names like “Nigerian scam”, “Four One Nine” or “Get poor fast scheme.”
Four persons including a Nigerian national, the kingpin, have been arrested in this connection.
Briefing mediapersons, DCP (Zone -1), Dimapur Police, Vilhousie Peseyie, said the arrests were made following three FIRs filed at East Police Station in which the complainants, all women, reported that were duped off their money.
The three women in the FIR stated that they were duped Rs. 31.50 lakhs, Rs. 6.47 lakhs and Rs. 25,000 respectively. Peseyie said a team of Dimapur Police including Dinesh Gupta, IPS probationer attached to East PS and Chopika Chophy, SI, camped for 16 days in Delhi and finally arrested the four accused. The four accused are presently in the custody of Dimapur Police.
Two of the accused including the Nigerian identified as one Chiazo Nwaneri alias Jasper (31 years) and Chandan Kumar Choudary (28 years) were nabbed in Delhi while the other two gang members identified Narender Singh Bisht (27 years), Laxma Karniyal (36 years) as were arrested from Uttrakhand.
Police also seized 42 SIM cards, 6 mobile handsets, 9 ATM cards, 3 internet devices, 3 passbooks, 3 cheque books, a laptop, 3 pen drives and Rs. 31,000 in cash from Nwaneri.
On the modus operandi of the gang, police said the kingpin Chiazo Nwaneri used to open hundreds of fake facebook accounts preferably using English names and posing as some rich gentleman. Through such fake accounts, Nwaneri starts to chat and get friendly with vulnerable victims, mostly women. After two-three months and having gained the confidence of the victim, Nwaneri would then devise various ways to fleece his victims, informed Dinesh Gupta, IPS, leading the investigation.
The most common strategy is to inform the facebook friend (victim) that Nwaneri, posing as some rich European gentleman, was sending an expensive “gift” (like Apple laptop, I-phone, gold jewelry). After a couple of days, one of Nwaneri accomplices would pose as some customs or airport officials and inform the would-be victim over phone that the “gift” had arrived at IG Airport, New Delhi, and waiting to be claimed.
However, to claim the gift Nwaneri accomplice would also inform the would-be victim that he or she has to pay some money varying from thousands or rupees to a few lakhs as airport “clearance fee”, “custom fee” or “security clearance fee.”
It’s hook, line and sinker! The victim deposits the money in an account given by Nwaneri or his men, but the gift never arrives. In many cases, Nwaneri would continue to fleece the victim citing one reason or the other. In some cases, Nwaneri and his men even threatened that they would send “international police” to arrest the victims if they did not pay up, police informed.
Police informed that other strategies employed by Nwaneri to dupe the victim include posing as a rich westerner who is bored with the west and wants to settle in India or the North East Region along with all his wealth and lottery scams using names of reputed companies or offices like BBC, Reserve Bank of India and Coca Cola.
According to police, Nwaneri has been staying in Delhi in a lavish apartment for the past three years on a fake passport after his passport expired in 2013.
