The crime branch has arrested three Nigerians from Seelampur for running a fake Internet lottery racket. The police said the accused used to send SMSs and fake e-mail of lottery wins through email address espn2011draw@msn.com [1] to victims. They used advanced software to ensure that their host server could not be traced.
A complaint was filed by one Arvind Kumar, a resident of Trilok Puri, who claimed that he had been cheated of `4,70,425 by the accused.
“The location of sender is difficult to find in such spoofed e-mails. The lottery promised a windfall of £50 million to the victim who was told that his mail account had won online lottery and he needed to deposit the cash in a bank account as security deposit,” DCP, crime branch, Ashok Chand said.
The mastermind of the gang, John, 34, a diploma holder in estate management, came to India in 2005 and got involved in crime after his garment export business failed. Davies Inemhonlan, 31, and Sunday Mokobi, 38, joined John and Sameer Ahmad in running the fake lottery scam. Sameer Ahmed, a graduate and a resident of Seelampur, met John in 2010.
“They were running fake lotteries under the name ‘ESPN 2011 Cricket World Cup Draw’, ‘World Cup Draw’, England Lotteries Ltd’ and ‘BMW Lotteries Ltd’. With their arrest, we are expecting more complaints to come up against them. A case has been registered against them and further investigations are on,” DCP Chand said.
Links:
[1] mailto:espn2011draw@msn.com