Three Nigerian nationals were arrested for allegedly cheating over 1,000 people of several crores of rupees in the last eight years via matrimonial sites and social media platforms, police said on May 30.

The matter came to light after a resident of Central Delhi filed a complaint on the National Cyber Crime Portal stating that she had been duped of â‚¹ 55,900.

According to the complainant, she came in a touch with a person on a matrimonial site. He introduced himself as Ankit Verma and that he was a doctor based out of Canada. They exchanged phone numbers and started talking to each other on WhatsApp.

On December 22 last year, the person told the complainant that he had arrived at the Indira Gandhi International Airport here, but the customs officers had held him for carrying a huge amount of Canadian dollars.

Then, a lady called the complainant from another mobile number and told her that Verma had been taken into custody at the airport and that they needed to pay â‚¹ 55,900 to get him released. The complainant transferred the money.

The lady further raised a demand for â‚¹ 1,50,000. This is when the complainant sensed something fishy and refused to pay further.

Key details

• The police found that a large number of transactions were done from the account to which the complainant had transferred the money.
• The money credited to these accounts were being transferred to other bank accounts or immediately withdrawn through ATMs. Various bank accounts were opened in the name of different persons to rotate the money.
• The accused disclosed that they created fake profiles on various matrimonial sites and social media platforms to cheat people.
• One of the three accused had entered India illegally via the Bangladesh border in December 2020. Since then, he had been residing in Greater Noida and was arrested from there.

• 25 bank accounts created in different banks under different names for the purpose had been traced.

• Approximately, â‚¹ 4 lakh in these bank accounts was frozen. Besides, â‚¹ 2.02 lakh cash, 15 mobile phones, 20 SIM cards, two laptops and four dongles have been recovered.