A Nigerian national who allegedly deceived people by hacking their WhatsApp accounts has been arrested in Bengaluru, Delhi police said on Saturday.
Defendant Okwudiri Paschal (40) was arrested while withdrawing the fraudulent sum of Rs 20,000 from an ATM in the capital of Karnataka on November 16, they said.
The crime became evident when one of the victims filed a complaint with the Tilak Marg police station on November 2.
The complainant alleged that he received a message on WhatsApp stating that the virtual platform’s installations were being upgraded for which the system generated a six-digit code. He said that as soon as he typed in his mobile number followed by the 6-digit code provided by an unknown mobile number, his WhatsApp screen became non-functional and the account was hacked, police said.
The hacker then sent messages to the victim’s relatives through the victim’s WhatsApp number and requested to transfer money for various reasons. Account numbers of several banks were provided by the accused to relatives of the victim for the money transfer, a senior police official said.
Deputy Police Commissioner (New Delhi) Deepak Yadav said: “We sent our team to Bengaluru who reviewed the bank account details provided by the accused and during the investigation it was revealed that the defendants attracted many victims for different reasons and were tricking them into transferring money to bank accounts. ” The officer said the defendants used to regularly change their bank accounts in order to evade the police. As soon as a victim transferred the amount to the bank, the money was withdrawn from various ATMs in Banaswadi, Bangalore.
During the investigation, it was revealed that the accused was part of an international cyber fraud racket and had deceived hundreds of victims across India. The accused was taken to Delhi in pre-trial detention and a further investigation is underway, the DCP said.
Police recovered several ATM cards, cell phones and SIM cards used in the commission of the offense.
PTI AMP SRY
(This story was not edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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