A 52-year-old teacher from Vikhroli has been duped of ₹7.15 lakh by a Facebook ‘friend’, who claimed to be an orthopaedic surgeon from England.
According to the police, the complainant, a resident of Tagore Nagar, received a friend request from an account named Victor Rolad on Facebook in January. She accepted the request and soon the two exchanged phone numbers and started chatting over messaging services.
“After a few days, Rolad informed the complainant that while buying birthday gifts for his son, he also bought some gifts for her. He claimed to have sent the gifts to the woman in India, but they were seized by the customs officials at the Delhi airport. He claimed that the parcel contained foreign currency worth $40,000 (equivalent to around ₹36 lakh), an iPhone, a diamond studded wrist watch, a gold chain and a bag,” said a police officer.
The complainant then received a phone call from a ‘customs officer’ from the airport, who asked her to pay the customs duty, foreign currency conversion charges, penalty and various other charges to get the parcel cleared through customs. The woman then spoke to Rolad, who also told her that the parcel contained foreign currency and gifts worth ₹76 lakh and requested her to pay the money in order to get the parcel delivered to her, the officer added.
The complainant paid a total of ₹7.15 lakh in the name of various charges. When the customs officials and Rolad asked her to pay more, she suspected foul play and consulted a lawyer friend and a policeman, who told her that it was a fraud.
She then lodged a complaint with the Vikhroli police station against Rolad and the ‘customs officials.’ The police have registered an FIR for cheating, identity theft and cheating by impersonation. Police said that the modus-operandi is similar to what was known as “Nigerian fraud” and also indicated involvement of Nigerian fraudster gangs.