The accused cheated a Chandigarh resident of Rs. 8.72 lakhs by luring him with a fake Facebook profile of a woman

New Delhi, March 3

The Chandigarh Police arrested three people from West African countries for cheating a local resident of Rs 8.72 lakhs by luring him with a woman’s fake social media profile. 

The accused were identified as Gideon Sebastian, 42, Clement Aful of Ghana, and Moise Kei of Republic of Ivoirienne who were living in Raj Nagar of Delhi. 

The police said the victim was contacted on Facebook through a fake profile of a woman named Tina Francis.

The police suspect that the accused were running the racket at a larger scale and involved in 50 cases of cheating are registered in various parts of the country.

The police have seized 23 mobile phones, 23 SIM cards, 40 ATM cards of different banks, 8 passbooks, 4 cheque books, 5 Wifi-Hotspots, 1 dongle, and 4 laptops were recovered from the possession of the suspects. 

The complainant, Yashvir Singh of Mani Majra had lodged a complaint alleging that he had been befriended with one woman named Tina Francis on Facebook three months ago. Tina had lured him with the promise of sending him a costly gift from the UK, for which he will have to just pay custom charges. 

The officials added that after a few days, Yashvir Singh received a call from a woman, who introduced herself as a representative of RBL bank and told him to deposit a certain amount of money in a bank account. Yashvir deposited the money in multiple accounts but did not receive any of his gifts. 

The police added that the details opf the accused slongwith the devies they used for committing crime would be shared with all state police to find out if the devices were used in other online crimes too. 

The cybercrime cell of Chandigarh police have booked the accused for cyberfraud.