A five-member police team from Bargarh with the help of Delhi police arrested the accused - N. Anthony, Max Well, Okonkwo Nambichery, John Abboid Bayjoi (all Nigerinas) and Kisakai Fanta Bela (Ugandan woman) - on July 14 and brought them here, police said.
"The special police team from here arrested them in New Delhi and brought them here on remand. They are now being interrogated", Sub-Divisional Police Officer (Bargarh) Amarendra Rana said.
Rana said a local shop-keeper, Syam Sundar Sahu had received a message on his cellphone on June 2, 2012 where the sender had confirmed he was the lucky winner of a lottery of Rs one crore and requested him to deposit Rs 21,500 as processing fee to get the prize money.
Accordingly, the complainant deposited the money in a savings account given by the sender. Later, he was asked to deposit more money to get the lottery amount. Sahu has claimed that he had deposited Rs 5,23 lakh to get the lottery money.
But when he was asked to deposit Rs 75,000 more, Sahu suspected that he was being duped by senders of the message in the name of lottery and complained to police on June 30, 2012", Rana said.
Following some leads a police team went to New Delhi which finally resulted in the arrest of the fraudsters, he said.
Police seized several laptops and cellphones from the accused besides some cash.