The police are yet to determine how many people were duped and how much money was involved.

According to the police, the Nigerian, Festos Albaika (27), would send e-mails to people congratulating them for winning an online lottery, “usually millions”. The same e-mail would contain instructions to the ‘winner’ to deposit a certain amount of money towards service charges and tax in an account, the number of which was communicated in the mail itself. Once the money was deposited, Albaika would instruct his accomplices to withdraw it.

“The matter came to light on January 10 when Girgaum resident Jayant Sagwekar (40), one of the arrested, approached a bank in MIDC with a cheque for Rs 1.5 lakh in his name to get it encashed from his account in the bank. When he was informed by the bank officials that certain charges would have to be paid for withdrawing such a big amount, Sagwekar initially hesitated and then stepped out for a moment to confer with someone,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone 10) KM Prasanna.

“When Sagwekar returned, he agreed to pay the required charges. This raised the suspicion of the bank officials, who told Sagwekar to come the next day as withdrawal of such a big amount would take some time. The bank then probed the details of the account and discovered that it had been opened the same day and that three deposits had been made. The bank personnel immediately contacted the MIDC police station,” said Prasanna.

After investigations, the police arrested Sagwekar and Harish Acharya (35), the accomplice who had been waiting outside the bank, from their residences on January 12.

During questioning, Sagwekar told the police that he used to regularly receive commissions from Acharya for withdrawing money from the accounts which had been created in his (Sagwekar’s) name.

Acharya’s questioning led the police to Albaika, who was arrested on January 13 from his residence at Borivali, where the police recovered 23 debit cards, 2 laptops, 1 pen drive, 21 cheque books and 36 loose cheques.

“Our inquiries revealed that Albaika, who has been staying in India long after his work visa expired, had struck a deal with Acharya whereby the latter would acquaint himself with people like Sagwekar and instruct him to open an account, claiming that he (Acharya) would periodically receive payments from his associates and needed an account to facilitate the transfers,” said Prasanna.

“After opening the account, Sagwekar would hand over the debit card and cheque book to Acharya, who in turn would hand it over to Albaika. After sending the ‘lottery mails’ and receiving the money, Albaika would check the amount in the account by using the debit card and once the money had been deposited, he would instruct Sagwekar through Acharya to withdraw the amount on consideration of a commission of usually 2-3 per cent,” said Prasanna.