Latest victim of Nigerian fraud- superintendent of Customs Intelligence

[DomainK]

This is an embarrassing one:

One would expect the superintendent of Customs Intelligence to be rather intelligent; what with having caught hundreds of wily duty evaders. But a complaint lodged with J J Marg police shows that the man has fallen for one of the oldest tricks in the book: the Nigerian banking fraud. The officer – it has come to light – has lost Rs 7.5 lakh to the racket that had declared him the winner of $1 million through a “lucky dip” contest, which was organised by a certain Orange Communications Pvt Ltd. The officer, who came to know of his winnings through an email, still believes that he will receive the $1 million prize money – despite the cops having arrested one of the fraudsters. The customs officer – whom we can’t name because he still hasn’t made an official statement – has now asked the police for a few more days before he believes that he has actually been cheated. “He asks, ‘how can such a well-drafted email with the logo of Orange Communications be fake?’ He believes Orange Communications is the parent company of Vodafone, and since he has a Vodafone number, he is a natural beneficiary,” an officer with the JJ Marg Police Station disclosed. “He even argued that the mail has a logo of the renowned Natwest Bank. And now we are frustrated because we do not know how to explain to him that he must be the millionth victim of the oldest trick in this racket run by Nigerians,” he added. HOW THE CASE CAME TO LIGHT On September 4, a police patrol saw a suspicious-looking man standing near Nawab Masjid in Bhendi Bazaar, Byculla. When questioned, the man couldn’t provide satisfactory explanations – and it was only then that the police frisked him to discover Rs 7.30 lakh, an ICICI Bank card and some documents on his person. Rattled at the discovery, the man quickly tried to make a deal with the cops. “He told the police team, ‘Keep all the money, but let me go’. And that was when the patrol realised that they were probably onto something big,” PI Santosh Bagave of J J Marg Police Station said. On further interrogation, the man – identified as Aqeel Shahbuddin Nekvare, 25 – revealed that he was part of a racket being run by a Nigerian and that he had come to Bhendi Bazaar to deliver the money to his boss who was supposed to meet him there. MODUS OPERANDI The scamsters – the police soon discovered – spun a complex web to lure in their targets. “They used to send impeccably written emails and SMSes to people declaring them as the lucky winners of $1 million. They would then make the recipient fill up a form. The victim would then be given a password and a bank form to fill. Only after this, they would ask him to put money in a particular bank account as a refundable security deposit and as fees for various procedures required to transfer the prize money to his account. Once the victim deposited the money, they would switch off their phone,” Bagave said. HOW THE POLICE TRACED THE CUSTOMS OFFICER To get to the root of the racket, the police then fished out the details of the account through which the racket was operated. “The said account was in the name of a certain Nilesh Upadhyay who we are looking for. We then checked the bank statements, which is when we came across the custom officer’s name among others. When we discovered that he had deposited Rs 7.5 lakh into the account, we quickly got in touch with him to tell him about the scam and ask him to record his statement,” Bagave said. But the customs officer remained unmoved. “The accused has switched off his phone, but this officer believes his money is going to come. He says: ‘According to British time, my money is going to come by Thursday’. We do not know how to convince him now,” an officer said, rather helplessly. Source: http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=MIRRORNEW&BaseHref=MMIR/2009/09/10&PageLabel=1&EntityId=Ar00100&ViewMode=HTML&GZ=T

Such are the people in important positions. He is a superintendent of Customs Intelligence.(

[Sachinism]

Damn why didn't I know of this guy working at customs, I would have got a few things in and out of India