Romance Scam: Nigerian man nabbed in India for cheating women by posing as an American on Facebook

The Cyber Crimes Police station, Cyberabad East, India arrested a Nigerian national identified as Omeleze Fred for cheating Hyderabadi women by impersonating as an American national.

35-year-old Omeleze who hails from Asaba, Delta State pretended to be an American soldier on Facebook and lured victims expressing ‘his love' and extorted money in the name of investments.

On his arrest, the cops found a whopping 5 lakh mobile numbers and one lakh email IDs from his laptop which was seized. According to the police, the accused was living in Mehrauli, New Delhi. Preliminary investigation revealed that Fred came to India in 2012 and was staying in different localities in New Delhi. After his original visit visa expired two months after arriving in India, he prepared a fake Indian visa sticker and pasted it on his passport for presenting it for renting a house.

Inspector Md. Riyazuddin said the suspect created several Facebook profiles by putting photos of smart looking Americans and used to chat with Indian women online after searching for their profiles. In the case for which he was arrested, Fred had trapped the female victim by introducing himself as one ‘Benson’, an American soldier serving in Afghanistan.

After several conversations, he told her that he wanted to come to India and settle with her by investing his savings, which he told was about five million US dollars. The victim later received a call from a lady who introduced herself as a manager in the customs department of the airport in New Delhi. She was told that ‘Mr. Benson’ was apprehended by the customs department for bringing US Dollars and gold and diamond jewellery.

At the same time, Fred, as ‘Benson’ also rang her up and informed her that if she pay the taxes as told, the customs officer would release his money and jewellery which they would spend in their future life. Believing him, the victim transferred Rs.2.5 lakh in the bank accounts provided by the accused. Later she realized that she was cheated.

He was brought to Hyderabad and was remanded to judicial custody on Wednesday. The investigators found 50,00,00 mobile numbers, one lakh email ids of Indians from the seized laptops.