Nigerian lottery fraud case: Two held for duping Andhra Pradesh man

Two persons were arrested from Madhya Pradesh in connection with a fraud case involving a Nigerian wherein a resident of Tirupati town in Andhra Pradesh was allegedly cheated for over Rs 7 lakh, police said today. "The accused Ajit Singh Rajput and Mohan Kumar Singh Rajput were arrested from Gwalior on September 27," said Additional DG CID Ch Dwaraka Tirumala Rao. The complainant in the case had received an SMS on his cell phone stating that his mobile has won USD 850,000 in ICC World Cup Lottery and he was asked to furnish his details to an email ID 'cricketworld03@hotmail.com' for claiming the prize amount, police said.

"Believing this, he furnished his details to the said email ID. Subsequently, two persons contacted him over phone and through email and asked him to deposit amount towards registration fee and processing charges etc. to claim the prize amount," Rao said. The victim deposited Rs 7.52 lakh in various bank accounts on different dates from May to June 2011. "The accused Ajit Singh had opened 5 accounts in private and PSU banks in Gwalior on the instructions of another accused Mohan Kumar Singh," Rao said.

The ATM cards, cheque books of the bank accounts were handed over to Mohan Kumar Singh, which were in turn handed over to one Emeror Jones, a Nigerian national, for which Mohan Kumar Singh received an amount of Rs 2.50 lakh, the senior police officer said. "Out of this amount, Mohan Kumar Singh paid Rs 50,000 to Ajit Singh. Thus the both accused helped in committing this crime," the ADG added. Based on the information/clues provided by the Digital Lab, a CID team arrested the accused on September 27 at Gwalior and produced them before a court in Gwalior. "They were brought to Hyderabad and subsequently produced before a local court which sent them in judicial custody," the officer said.