According to a complaint by a woman from Malkajgiri area, the victim received an SMS in the first week of June, stating that she had won Rs 3.6 crore of Samsung Lottery. Thereafter, she also received e-mails, in which she was asked to pay some amount for "smooth transfer" of lottery amount into her bank account.
Accordingly, the woman deposited Rs 15.5 lakh in different bank accounts hoping that she would get the lottery amount. However, as the fraudsters kept asking her to deposit more money, she grew suspicious and approached the Cyber Crime Police Station, police said.
"Five laptops, 10 mobile phones, eight Internet data cards, 53 active SIM cards and cash of Rs 1.50 lakh were also seized from their possession," a release from Cyberabad Police said.
All the accused were brought to Hyderabad on transit warrant issued by the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) Tis Hazari Court in New Delhi, it said.
More From This Section
After the analysis of the laptops and mobiles, it came to light that the trio had contacted as many as 99,584 persons through SMS and e-mails, informing them that they had won the lottery. Some recipients of the messages fell prey and got cheated.
One of the accused- Odidi Onuriode Walsh, who was a police officer in Nigeria, had quit the force and came to India.
The Nigerian police will be contacted to get further details about the accused, police said, adding, all the accused had landed in India on business visa in 2013 that was valid for two months only.
"However, they created fake Indian visas of multiple entries and pasted on their passports. All the accused are produced before a local court and remanded to judicial custody," the release added.