Bareilly Police Recovers Rs 57 Lakh From Nigerian National In Rs 2.5 Cr Email Spoofing Fraud

BAREILLY: Days after a Nigerian cyber criminal was held in the Faridpur region of the Bareilly district, his accomplice, Ruksaad Hussain, was arrested while attempting to depart the city on Tuesday. Ana amount of Rs 57 lakh was recovered from him.

“This is, so far, the largest monetary recovery in a cyber fraud case in Bareilly,” said Rohit Singh Sajwan, SSP of Bareilly.

Sajwan claimed Ruksaad was attempting to flee Bareilly with Rs 27 lakh in cash when he was arrested on the Bhuta-Bisalpur state route. Police eventually retrieved Rs 30 lakh from his bank account.

Ruksaad is a personal assistant of Robert Otujeme, a citizen of Lagos, Nigeria, who was arrested on August 25.

He was involved in multiple counts of cyber fraud and has been in India since 2011 on an invalid visa.

“Previously, the Nigerian told us that he syphoned off around Rs 2.5 crore from the current account of Ganesh Ecotech Pvt Ltd, a Kanpur-based firm, through email spoofing,” said Bareilly SSP Sajwan.

“This sum was moved to several accounts, and each account holder was promised a 20 percent profit on the money. Our cyber cell tracked down some of the accounts where more than Rs 30 lakh was exchanged. On our request, the banks froze those accounts.”

“During our investigation, we discovered that Ruksaad had transferred Rs 27 lakh in his current account and had withdrawn the money. He was attempting to flee Bareilly with the money, but we were able to arrest him. He was holding a keypad phone and expertly concealing his location,” he said.

Police hope for more progress in this case now that two fugitives, Mehandi Hasan and his son, Arbaaz Khan, have been apprehended.