Duo pose as seniors, scam MNC staff of ₹1 crore using fake emails; arrested
NEWDELHI: An Indian and a Nigerian man were arrested for scamming people by posing as senior MNC officials to trick employees of a string of multinational firms into transferring them lakhs of rupees, police said on Friday.
Police said the duo would either hack into the emails of senior MNC officials or create fake email IDS, which appeared to belong to those senior officials, and send emails to junior employees or in some cases the finance officers of the company seeking urgent transfer of cash to a bank account they mentioned. They would claim either to be in some urgent need of money or claim that the money was required for official work.
“They would send out multiple such emails as hit-and-trial. The employees of the company who did not question the demand would fall prey to them. Though it is not clear how many persons they cheated using this modus operandi, they have confessed to having made over ₹1 crore in the last four months,” said Chinmoy Biswal, DCP (south-east).
“They usually withdrew money from their bank accounts immediately after they succeeded in their scam, however, one of their accounts still reflected ₹25 lakh in balance after we arrested them,” said Biswal.
The alleged mastermind of the racket, 31-year-old Amit Gupta, had studied only till Class 5 and worked as an unskilled labourer in Faridabad before he began his fraud, said the DCP.
“Gupta was aware that many foreigners are involved in tricking people by sending fraud emails. So, he moved to Sangam Vihar in south Delhi a year ago so that he could befriend some people of African origin living there,” said the DCP.
Gupta became friends 31-year-old Bill Uzowuru Izu- chukwu, a Nigerian man who could speak fluent Hindi and was in India on a student visa for the last four years. Izuchukwu would allegedly help with the technical aspects of the scam.
Together, the duo allegedly opened at least three bank accounts on fraud identity proof. One of these accounts was in the name of a fake firm whose proprietor they claimed to be, said police.
The officer claimed that the duo was forced to use only the three bank accounts as opening new accounts needed Aadhaar cards which they couldn’t produce.
The racket was busted when officials of an MNC, having a branch in south Delhi’s Nehru Place, approached police to complain that one of them had received a demand for ₹4.8 lakh. Delhi Police officials then used technical surveillance to nab the duo.