Kathmandu, January 7

Metropolitan Police Crime Division has arrested five members of a fraud ring, which swindled many people of hefty cash on the pretext of transferring ‘amount of lottery the victims won online’.

They were taken into custody yesterday.

The alleged online scammers are Sharmila Kumari Shrestha, 28, of Rautahat, Alankar Jain, 29, of Morang, Navin Agrawal, 49, and Anand Agrawal, 52, of India, and Sushil Gurung, 40, of Kathmandu.

They were running lottery scam on social media including Facebook, WhatsApp, Viber and IMO. Messages sent randomly to internet and mobile users said that the recipients had won substantial sum of money in an online lottery. Message of winning the lottery enticed gullible recipients to reply the scammers and send them certain amount of money through wire or banking channel ‘for tax clearance’ to claim the lottery or the parcel as demanded by the scammers.