By Henry Okonkwo
A Nigerian man, Daniel Gozie, 38, has been arrested for his alleged link to a romance scam syndicate that defrauded women in India.
The Indian police statement issued on Friday disclosed that Mr Gozie was arrested on Thursday alongside another Indian suspect, Gabriela Sharmila, 33, for allegedly defrauding a woman of over N961,000 (1.733 lahks) under the guise of sending her gifts after befriending her on a marriage website.
According to Indian police, the two suspects are the second and third arrests in the fraud case, which was filed on March 31, 2023. They said that earlier on April 2, one Ignatus Ngosine was also arrested in the same case.
The police said, “Gabriela had called the victim around the second week of March pretending to be a customs official from Mumbai airport and told her that there were illegal items in the parcel sent to her. The victim was told that she needs to pay customs duty and other charges. Around March 20, she deposited the money in the bank accounts created by the suspects who would withdraw cash immediately after each transaction”.
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India’s assistant commissioner of police, Varun Kumar Dahiya, said that an unidentified associate of Daniel Gozie had befriended the victim on a matrimonial website and claimed to be an Indian working in Turkey for a diamond firm. He said that Mr Gozie later told her that he was sending gifts for her from Turkey.
“Police interrogated the suspects and sought information on how many women they targeted and who the other members of their gang were. Gozie used to arrange fake SIM cards and bank accounts for the gang.
Also, five mobile phones were recovered from the suspects,” Dahiya added.
