Lie, cheat, loot

This was the philosophy of a Nigerian cyber crime gang held by the Delhi police; but theY RAN OUT OF LUCK when one of their victims went on an ATM-looting spree

This was the philosophy of a Nigerian cyber crime gang held by the Delhi police; but theY ran out of luck when one of their victims went on an ATM-looting spree

Mike Duglas (35), Fajembola Olajide Oluwutobi (26), Femi (31) and Iserial Babatunde (28) carried out their business in the name of the British Lotto Commission, a fictitious organisation. The gang specialised in black dollar frauds, job rackets, fake lottery scams and credit card scams.


The Nigerian gang sent out lottery winning notifications like the one
above to victims.

Their most interesting 'project' was 33-year-old Jagannath Tripathi, a resident of Orissa. According to the police, last year Tripathi received an e-mail from this gang, congratulating him on winning fifty-five thousand British pounds in a lottery draw. One of the gang members called up Tripathi, claiming to be a UK resident and a representative of the British Lotto Commission, and confirmed the 'winning.' A few days later, they called Tripathy again, asking him to deposit a certain amount of money in their bank account as surety.

According to the police, the gang was aware that Tripathy was working for CMS Securitas Ltd, a company dealing in cash management and security. The custodians at CMS deposit cash at ATMs and are aware of the passwords of the ATM machines. Traditionally, each password has about six to nine digits and each custodian is aware of two to three digits. They are able to open the machine after logging in together."

Meanwhile, Tripathy was completely hooked. So when the gang called him up, asking him to deposit Rs 2,37,69,000 in their account, he readily agreed. They had already convinced Tripathy that the money would be refunded to him along with the winnings, within 24 hours. Tripathy convinced three more custodians to pinch the hefty sum from a few ATMs, as he would have not succeeded in doing it alone. He promised them a share in the winnings. So they put the plan to action and robbed 18 ATMs of Axis, HDFC, ICICI and PNB banks.

However, Tripathy and his associates were nabbed by the police before they could contact the Nigerians.

E-criminals

The Nigerians came to Delhi on student visas. A chance of making quick money lured them into cyber crime and they received initial help from another Nigerian friend. While three of them were staying at Jyoti Apartments in Chattarpur, the other lived at Khirki village near Malviya Nagar. Said the spokesperson of Aptech institute: "Femi was a student at our institution and joined the computer diploma course eight months ago. But we are not aware of the facts of the case and that he was engaged in criminal activity."

The manager of CMS registered a case against Tripathy and his three colleagues at Sahadev Khunta Police Station in Orrisa.

The police filed cases under Sections 406, 409, 420 of the IPC and the arrests were made on December 27, 2009. However, the Nigerian gang was arrested in Delhi only on February 22.

"I was tipped off about the gang. We have arrested four of them at north campus near Khalsa College. We recovered 27 mobiles phones, three laptops and several designer watches," said a senior police officer of the special staff.

According to the police, the gang had been active for the last one year. One of the members, Femi, was pursuing a computer diploma course from the Aptech computer institute at Kingsway Camp in north Delhi.