Man who helped foreigner cheat women of lakhs held

Noida: The cyber cell team of UP Special Task Force on Wednesday arrested a 21-year-old man for allegedly helping an Ivory Coast national who was held last month for befriending women on social media and cheating them of lakhs.
Police said Dheeraj Rathod, who belonged to Haryana, used to get a commission in return for helping 26-year-old Ndafirmi, who was arrested by Noida police on May 9. The two of them were part of an organised gang of cybercriminals who had targeted at least 15 Indian women on social media and cheated them of Rs 1.6 crore, they said.
Rita Yadav, in-charge of the Cyber Crime police station in GB Nagar, said Rathod was arrested from his residence in Faridabad. “During interrogations, the accused confessed that he used to get Rs 20,000 each time his bank account was used for money transactions between the foreign national and the women he was duping,” Yadav said.
Rathod was booked under sections 120B (party to criminal conspiracy), 389 (extortion), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), and 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) of the IPC as well as sections 66 and 66D (cheating using communication device or computer) of the IT Act.
"Their main modus operandi was to ask women to pay some amount of money to release some expensive gifts from customs officials. If they did not do so, the accused would threaten the women to entrap them in a money-laundering case. The gang has duped 15 women and cheated them of Rs 1.6 crore,” added Yadav.