Kathmandu, April 23

The Central Investigation Bureau of Nepal Police have arrested two members of an internet fraud ring, which swindled several persons of over four million rupees by convincing the victims that they had won lottery worth millions of dollars.

The arrested lottery scammers are Amit Kumar, 39, of Haryana, India; and a Chinese woman Wang Hongxia, 49.

Superintendent of Police Sudeep Giri said the Indian and Chinese nationals were arrested last week separately.

Kumar used to work for Anmol Guest House in Kathmandu Metropolitan City, while Wang owned the Thamel-based CWC Chinese Restaurant.

SP Giri informed that they were running a lottery scam on Facebook, WhatsApp, Viber and IMO. The messages randomly sent to internet and mobile users stated that the recipients had won a substantial sum of money in an online lottery. “Messages of winning the lottery enticed gullible recipients to reply to the scammers and send them a certain amount of money through wire or banking channel ‘for tax clearance to claim the lottery or the parcel’ as demanded by the scammers,” said a press release issued by CIB. Victims were found to have deposited cash in various bank accounts opened by Kumar.

The fraud ring was jointly operated by Indian, Chinese and Nigerian nationals. The Nigerian suspects are at large and the CIB said it was after them. “The Nigerian national identified the targets and sent them message of lottery prize before asking them to deposit certain amount of money in different bank accounts opened by Kumar as part of the process of transferring the lottery prize. After receiving the cash deposited by the victims, the scammers would share the amount,” SP Giri informed.

Recently, Nepal Police had cautioned people not to be lured and carried away by lottery prizes and scammers, who were cheating gullible persons in the country and abroad.