3 Indian Associates Arrested in Online Fraud Scam, Earlier Busted With The Arrest Of A Nigerian Scamster

Crime Branch has arrested one Lalramsanga Buongpui @ John @ Sangte (25 yrs) s/o Lalthangzuol Buongpui r/o Mahipalpur, Delhi alongwith his two associates namely Hari Shanker @ Ashu s/o Rajinder Gaur (21 yrs) r/o Dr. Ambedkar Colony, Chhattarpur, Delhi and Sandip @ Sonu s/o Krishan Kumar (22 yrs) r/o Vill. Tatarpur, Distt. Gurgaon, Haryana who were indulging in arranging bank accounts for Nigerian scamsters to facilitate them for cheating the gullible persons. This is in continuation of recent arrest of a Nigerian national namely Furtunatus Obinna alongwith 21 ATM cards, 16 mobile phones and PAN card. 7 more ATM cards, 2 bank passbooks and 1 cheque book have been recovered from them.

BACKGROUND: -

In this particular case, an email was received from mail Id marianaedwards@live.com to the victim. The mailer pretended to be a young girl of 25 years, a medical student of Sudan, living in an orphanage of Senegal due to political crisis in her country. She used seductive phrases to entice him and gained his sympathy by portraying that her parents have been killed in the riots, leaving behind a big fund of 2.7 million US dollars and asked the victim to help her in getting this amount transferred by allowing her to deposit the same in his account for the time being. She wrote that due to some critical laws of her country, she cannot claim this fund directly. This fund had to be transferred to some other account and then after the same will be transferred to her account. In the name of process charges for this transfer, she lured the victim to deposit Rs.85,378/- in an account of Canara Bank and Rs.3,99,231/- in another account of ICICI bank and the victim deposited the same on 25.04.2015 and 04.05.2015 respectively.  After depositing this amount, the victim was further asked to deposit Rs.8 lac in an account of Standard Chartered Bank. At this, the victim got suspicious and instead of depositing this amount, approached Delhi Police and lodged FIR No.144/15 u/s 420/468/471/120b IPC & 66(d) IT Act, PS Crime Branch, Delhi with Cyber Cell, Crime Branch.

During investigation, after receiving specific information, a Nigerian national Furtunatus Obinna (37 yrs) s/o Onyema r/o Gautam Nagar, New Delhi, was arrested on 16.12.2015. During sustained interrogation, he stated that he used to purchase ATM cards from some agents who used to open such bank accounts just to sell for Rs.10,000/- to 20,000/-. After purchasing the ATM cards, he used to change their SMS alert mobile number to his own number through the ATMs. Thereafter, he used to send the details of so purchased bank accounts to his associates in Nigeria who would give these account numbers to the potential victims whom they have lured into their trap. As soon as the victims would deposit the money in these accounts, he used to withdraw this amount through ATMs after receiving the SMS alert. After keeping his share of 50% share, he used to send this money to his associates in Nigeria. He disclosed that he used to purchase ATM cards to operate other’s bank accounts from one John, a resident of a North East India and others.

INFORMATION, TEAM & OPERATION: -

            Further information was developed and on receipt of a specific information, a team of Cyber Cell comprising of Inspr. Ram Niwash, SI Narender Kumar, HC Rajesh Kumar, Cts. Gagan, Kapil, Narender Kumar and Kuldeep Kumar led by ACP H.M. Bakshi, under supervision of Addl.DCP S.K.Singh was constituted to nab the source of such bank accounts/ATM cards. The main ATM card seller Lalramsanga Buongpui @ John @ Sangte (25 yrs) s/o Lalthangzuol Buongpui alongwith his two associates Hari Shanker @ Ashu and Sandip @ Sonu were arrested on eve of New Year on 31/12/2015.

MODUS OPERANDI: -

During sustained interrogation, accused Lalramsanga @ John @ Sangte disclosed that he used the lure local residents of South Delhi, most of them hailing from North-East India to open their bank accounts either on the basis of fake documents or addresses of rented places and give their ATM cards with its full details to him in the exchange of 6 to 10 thousand rupees. He also advised them to shift their residents after giving him the bank ATM cards so that they could not evade arrest. In the greed of money, some of his agents too used to purchase such ATM cards for further supply to him. One of such agent Hari Shanker @ Ashu used to purchase the ATM cards from his known to persons and supply the same to Lalramsang @ John @ Sangte.

PROFILE: -

1.                  Lalramsanga Buongpui was born in Assam and after completion of his 12^th, he went to Mumbai and worked as Spa Therapist. Then, he shifted to Shimla with his girlfriend in the year 2014 and later, shifted to Delhi. His girlfriend got job in a Spa Centre in Delhi but he remained unemployed. During this period, he befriended some Nigerian nationals living in Arjun Nagar namely Sunny, Obinna, Igwe etc. who allured him to arrange bank accounts for them.

 

2.                  Hari Shanker @ Ashu was born in Chhatarpur, Delhi and he has studied up to 12^th standard. He is pursuing his graduation from DU through correspondence. His father is a guard in a bank who does not provide any economical support to him. For meeting his day to day expenses, he joined this gang and till the date he has supplied Lalramsanga @ John more than 15 ATM cards including that of the co-accused Sandip @ Sonu.

3.                  Sandip @ Sonu has studied up to 12^th standard. Earlier, he started working in a Ware House Store in Terminal-3 area of IGI Airport. He is a distant relative of the accused Harishankar @ Ashu who lured him to sell his ATM card. In the greed of money, he too sold his ATM card to him.