Monday, 26 June 2023 | PNS | DEHRADUN
The Uttarakhand Special Task Force (STF) has taken legal action against eight Nigerian cyber crime accused. It is the first time in the country that eight Nigerian cyber crime accused were tried simultaneously by the authorities, claimed the deputy superintendent of police of the cyber crime police station of STF, Ankush Mishra. He told The Pioneer that the suspected eight accused had duped people across the country via phishing, pretending to be fake customs officials and identity theft among various other methods used by them.
They have also reportedly duped people living across the country under the pretext of being citizens of the United Kingdom. The DSP said that STF received a complaint from a woman Reshma Dewan that a man who claimed to be a citizen of the United Kingdom befriended her online via WhatsApp and started chatting with her. He reportedly sent her a ‘gift’ for which she also got a fake call claiming to be from the custom department in which Rs 19 lakh was demanded to release the gift that she paid. The STF registered an FIR against the accused under Sections 420 and 120B of the India Penal Code and Section 66D of the Information Technology Act was registered at the Cyber Crime Police Station in Dehradun.
The investigation was handed over to inspector Devendra Singh who started the investigation. Mishra said that the team recently arrested the accused Chijioke Ndimkaoha from New Delhi and identified his seven gang members. He said that as per the STF’s probe, the arrested accused used 21 different mobile phones and five laptops to commit various crimes across the country. As per the evidence collected in the investigation so far, several victims have filed complaints against these accused in several police stations of various states including Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, and Telangana, claimed Mishra. He said that one accused has been arrested and the team has started legal proceedings to nab the seven accused too who have been identified by STF. “We are also looking for the mastermind and other members of this gang,” added the DSP.
