Thaindian News

New Delhi, July 3 (IANS) A 25-year-old man was arrested here for involvement in an online lottery fraud and duping a man of Rs.50,000, police said Sunday.

“Mohammad Ali, who hails from Badaun district of Uttar Pradesh, was held from Patel Nagar area (of central Delhi) Saturday while he was withdrawing money from a bank account,” said a police officer.

Police said that Ali was held after ICICI Bank gave a written complaint that one of its customers had been defrauded by unidentified people to the tune of Rs.50,000 on the pretext of winning a lottery.

The bank said that the customer was lured to believe that he had won a lottery. “They asked the customer to deposit Rs.50,000 in an account of ICICI Bank as processing fee to claim the lottery prize money. The customer deposited the amount but got suspicious and made a complaint to the bank,” said the officer.

Ali came to the ICICI Bank at Patel Nagar to withdraw Rs.50,000 and officials questioned him about the source of the funds. He was unable to explain this and his two bank accounts were frozen and police were called in.

Police found that huge transactions were made from the account from which Ali was trying to withdraw money. Police also went to the premises whose address was given by the account holder but the house was found locked.

Ali told police that he was part of an online lottery fraud racket in which they cheated people by luring them through e-mails that they had won a substantial amount of money.