PANAJI: While Nigerian nationals are said to be in the forefront of illicit drug trade in Goa, they apparently are also the ringleaders in online frauds.
Since mid-2014, there have been around 15 cases pertaining to online frauds registered with the cyber crime police station at Ribandar. Be it lottery scam, email fraud, job scam, marriage bureau scam or scam pertaining to social media, Nigerian nationals are the main accused behind such online frauds, police believe.
It may be recalled that in 2014, in two separate cases of email fraud and job fraud, the cyber crime police had come across involvement of Nigerian nationals. In the email fraud case amounting to Rs 35 lakh, police had arrested Niraj Kumar Anand, a police constable from Delhi police and the probe had revealed that the accused had links with a Nigerian gang.
Even in the job scam case amounting to Rs 30 lakh, the victim had met one Nigerian national in Mumbai and had also handed over his passport.
Similarly, in other online frauds such as lottery scam, marriage bureau scam or scam pertaining to social media in which people have lost lakhs of rupees, police claimed that the Nigerian nationals are the masterminds.
Police find it difficult to nab the main accused as they (Nigerians) do not reveal either their proper identity or the place of stay to their Indian accomplices or victims. Apart from that, they constantly keep on changing their locations. The Indian accomplices help the Nigerians by opening bank accounts (outside Goa) and obtain mobile SIM cards (outside Goa), which is mostly done using fake documents, police probe has revealed. For this support, the Indian accomplices are paid a certain percentage of the money earned through the frauds.
Police said that once money is deposited by the victim in a bank account as directed by the accused, it is immediately withdrawn. It is only at a later stage that the victim realises that he/she has been taken for a ride and by the time the victim lodges a complaint and the probe begins, there is no CCTV footage record available of those particular days with the banks from where the accused had withdrawn money. After executing the fraud, the accused stops using the particular bank account, police claimed.
Though till date no Nigerian national has been arrested by the Goa police in connection with online frauds, police, however, referring to statistics, claim that Nigerians have been arrested by police elsewhere in the country in connection with such frauds. According to the police, there is a need to set up an all-India level coordination platform wherein such cases pertaining to online frauds and other cases are dealt with an iron hand.