After her detention at the airport, Octavie was placed under arrest by officials from Pimpri Chinchwad police and her three-day transit remand was secured from the Patiala House court. (Representational)A 28-year-old Congolese woman, wanted by the Pimpri Chinchwad police in a case of cyber fraud through a dating website, was arrested after she was detained upon landing at Delhi airport in response to a Lookout Circular (LOC) issued against her.
Identified as Biyu Nyamaembelo Octavie (28), the accused woman who had come to India on a student visa and was living in Bengaluru when she was involved in the crime, was detained by the authorities at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi on August 19 in response to an LOC issued after the requisition from Pimpri Chinchwad police.
After her detention at the airport, Octavie was placed under arrest by officials from Pimpri Chinchwad police and her three-day transit remand was secured from the Patiala House court. Details of her arrest were shared with the media following her production before a court in Pune where she was remanded to police custody.
In January 2021, a 40-year-old woman had registered a First Information Report (FIR) at Wakad police station after she had been cheated to the tune of Rs 12.3 lakh by cyber fraudsters using a fake profile of a US-based, divorced cosmetic surgeon on an online dating and matchmaking portal. The complainant’s trust was gained through video calls and even by showing some purported videos of the US-based hospital, officials said.
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According to her complaint, the ‘cosmetic surgeon’ promised to get married to her and subsequently settle down in India. Few weeks into the communication, the complainant was asked to make fund transfers, initially on the pretext of treating the ‘surgeon’s’ mother’s head injury and for procurement of some medicinal seeds from a Bengaluru-based entity for her treatment. Later, she was cheated as she was told that the seeds had worked and funds were sought on the pretext of starting a business of those seeds. More funds were sought saying that while coming back to India the ‘surgeon’ had been detained at the airport by Customs officials.
By the time the complainant and her family realised that she had been cheated, she had lost Rs 12.3 lakh to cyber fraudsters. A team led by Inspector Santosh Patil and Assistant Inspector A M Patil launched a probe in the case.
Deputy Commissioner of Police Anand Bhoite said that following the probe into various leads, the suspects in the case were identified and it came to light that they were operating from Bengaluru. When a probe team went to Bengaluru in January this year, they got to know that Octavie, a Congolese national, had already left the country but her male accomplice was still there. He, however, managed to give police the slip. After a search of his house in Bengaluru, the police recovered a laptop, pen drives and cell phones. The probe into these devices gave police leads on the online fraud. The two had been living in Bengaluru under false identities after coming to India on student visas, the probe revealed.
As the probe progressed, an LOC was issued against Octavie and she was detained by immigration authorities on August 19 when she arrived in India again. She is now in police custody and the police continue to look for her male accomplice.
“We are now probing whether the arrested woman is involved in similar cases of cyber frauds. Further investigation is on,” Inspector Patil said.