'Gift scam': Nigerian duo; Manipuri woman arrested by Cyber crime police

CHENNAI: The City cyber crime police wing (East zone) of Chennai Police arrested three persons- Two Nigeria men and a Manipuri woman who orchestrated a cyber scam from Faridabad, Haryana and allegedly swindled Rs 1.2 lakhs from an Ayanavaram resident.

The arrested persons were identified as Hugo Francisco (40) and Duru Clinton (27) of Nigeria and a woman Tabitha Ana (32) of Manipur.

The group got in touch with the man through facebook in May, posing as a businesswoman from London. After developing a friendship, the 'businesswoman' told the man that she has sent him a gift and subsequently a person claiming to call from the Customs department got in touch with the man and asked him to pay customs taxes to procure the gift, believing which he transferred Rs 1.2 lakh in installments.

When they still insisted on more money after which the man realised that he was being conned and when he questioned the 'businesswoman', they shut down their 'operation' after which the man realised that he was conned. Based on his complaint, a case was registered.

Police collected the phone numbers, e-mail IDs and IP (Internet Protocol) address of the group and a team was sent to Faridabad, Haryana where the money sent from the victim's account was withdrawn from an ATM.

A police team secured the accused on July 8 after camping there for a couple of days. All the accused were produced before a court there and after obtaining a transit warrant, he was brought to Chennai and produced before a magistrate and remanded to judicial custody.

Two months ago, a Chennai Court convicted two Nigerian nationals - Paulinus Chiliko and Cletus Ikechukwu and sentenced them to five years for a similar crime. They were operating out of Delhi and found guilty of cheating a Chennai woman of more than Rs 4.5 lakh by acquainting with her through a matrimonial website, claiming to be a doctor from Netherlands.