Bhubaneswar: The Crime Branch CID of Odisha Police today arrested two Nigerians and another woman who were involved in investment fraud from New Delhi.
The arrested persons are Christoper Chizobam @ Chizobam Krist, Nnamdi Stanley Mbamalu @ German, both Nigerian Nationals and Arti Gautam from New Delhi.
This organized gang of cyber criminals was operating in the guise of investment in saffron business promising high returns, police officials said.
Arti opened bank accounts in her own name and in the names of others and shared these accounts with Christoper, who used them to transfer the fraudulently obtained money. Christoper was involved in collection of mule accounts to facilitate the receipt of the stolen money. Nnamdi withdrew the cash from ATMs and handed it over to another Nigerian.
A person from Bhubaneswar had approached the Cyber Crime Unit, CID CB, that he was contacted through Facebook, then through WhatsApp and email in December, 2023 by a fraudster impersonating as a former IAS officer from the Odisha Cadre.
The person claimed that he was working at the World Bank in Washington, DC. During the course of social media conversations, the fraudster impersonating as ex-IAS officer sent an email asking the victim to get involved in a project to supply saffron to the World Bank Headquarters.
He asked the victim to contact the World Bank procurement department via email to express interest in supplying the saffron for their project.
The fraudster then introduced a supplier, who pretended as a Regional Manager at Organics Merchandise, a marketing agent for saffron farmers in India. They started the so-called supply business with an initial supply of 10 kg of saffron for testing and then went up to 110 kg as per the fake purchase order from the World Bank.
The victim paid a total of Rs. 2.65 crore through multiple transactions to various Indian bank accounts.
During investigation, the CB found that this gang of cyber criminals have been involved in 94 cases covering 10 states across the nation.
The police have seized six mobiles, two laptops, 10 SIM cards, 10 bank accounts, two debit cards and one Aadhar card and continue further investigation.