New Delhi, Sep 20 (Always First) A 25-year-old Ghanaian national, who allegedly cheated people by making fake profiles of NRIs in the US and the UK working as doctors, and pilots, a Delhi Police official said on Wednesday.

The Accused was identified as Big Jos a.k.a Joseph, presently living at Chander Vihar, had duped several people through Instagram and WhatsApp on pretext of sending them expensive gifts.

The officials further said that during scanning of Jos’ three banks account, transactions of more than Rs 16 lakh were found.

According to police, a complaint from Babli was received at Cyber police station in outer district, in July, in which the complainant alleged that she had received a friend request on her Instagram account from an unknown user. She accepted the friend request and the person told her that he is from the US and working as a pilot there. They started regular conversations or chatting on WhatsApp also with numbers of other foreign friends.

“Later on, the said Instagram user told her that he is sending her a gift parcel having USD also. After that, she also received a phone call from a woman caller who told her that she is calling from the Customs Department. She shared three account numbers for payment of money in lieu of custom duty,” Deputy Commissioner of Police, Outer, Harendra Singh.

“The complainant paid Rs 1.71 lakh as custom duty and other taxes. The mobile numbers used by alleged persons were found switched off and the alleged user also deleted the WhatsApp chat,” he said.

During the probe, after detailed technical surveillance of alleged Instagram IDs and WhatsApp numbers, a location was traced and on September 14, a raid was conducted and Jos was arrested.

“The mobile phones used in the commission of the crime have also been recovered from him. On verification, the accused was found living in India without any valid visa documents since July 2018. During investigation, three accounts involved in the case having transaction amounts of more than Rs 16 lakh have been found,” said the official.

On interrogation, it was revealed that Jos, along with his associates, was committing fraud by making fake profiles of NRIs in the US/UK working as doctors, pilots etc. on Social Media Platforms for duping victims.

Explaining the modus operandi of the accused, the DCP said that the accused used to send multiple friend requests to victims mainly lonely/single women on these social media platforms. “Once the victim accepts their friend requests, the accused persons start conversation with them and after sometime they pretend to send them expensive gifts through parcels which require custom clearance,” he said.

“When the victims receive fake calls regarding receipt of parcels at the customs office/airport, the accused persons demand huge money in lieu of custom duties and other duties to release the gift parcels,” the DCP added.