Nigerian internet lottery scammer arrested

The police in Bangalore, India have reported the arrest of a Nigerian internet lottery fraudster and two local associates whose greed in trying for a second bite on a victim led to their downfall.

Nigerian Paul Osagi (41) met his match last week when one of his scam text messages advising recipients that they had won a major prize in a ‘Yahoo-MSN” lottery conned third year engineering university student Dinesh Kumar (21).

Kumar entered into an email exchange and sent a sum of money to two accounts at the ICICI bank nominated by Osagi, who was posing as a British diplomat and said that the money was necessary for fees to ensure the prize was paid in India

The money was immediately drawn from an ATM in Bangalore, but then the fraudsters became greedy, calling Kumar from a local mobile number and demanding more money for ‘airport charges’.

That was enough to alert Kumar that something was wrong, and he reported the matter to police’s Central Crime Branch, which commenced an investigation that included a survey of CCTV footage at the ATM, and the ultimate arrest of the gang.

Deputy Commissioner of Police M. Sudhakar commented to reporters: “This is yet another case where bank accounts and SIM cards activated with bogus documents become effective tools in the hands of culprits. Video footage at an ATM centre in Bangalore showed two persons drawing the money.

“Following specific clues, the team arrested Osagie and his associates Mohamed Afzal (29) and Rajesh Viswanath Kedia (49). Rs. 94,000 was recovered.