Nigerian Football Coach Arrested In India Over Alleged N9.39 Million Gift Scam

A Nigerian football coach, Henry Chukwudi Opara, has been arrested in India for allegedly scamming an unsuspecting victims to the tune of Rs 18.50 lakh (about N9,397,082.50).

The 31-year-old Nigerian national, who was arrested alongside his accomplice, Suraj, 29, was accused of defrauding his victims on the pretext of sending them expensive gifts and foreign currency.

In a statement issued on Monday by the Rachakonda Cybercrime Police, the suspects who were both residents of Goutham Buddha Nagar in Greater Noida were arrested on Saturday.

“Henry who came to this country on medical visa for a surgery, later married an Indian woman from Karnataka and settled in Hyderabad.

“He later became a part-time football coach in New Delhi, where he met his fellow Nigerians who committed online frauds including gift frauds, job frauds and loan frauds.

“Henry too adopted the same modus operandi to earn easy money and joined them and started cheating people online. They fraudulently procured the bank accounts to carry out their transactions.

“In December 2020, they cheated a person from Hyderabad on the pretext of sending gifts and foreign currencies and fabricated a story that the parcel was seized by customs at Delhi airport, and to get it released, they made the victim to transfer money into bank accounts provided by Suraj.

“Following a complaint from the victim, the cybercrime police booked a case and with the help of technical clues, traced and nabbed the suspects.

“They were produced before the court on Sunday and remanded in judicial custody,” the statement reads.

KanyiDaily had also reported how a 41-year-old Nigerian student, Nwaokorie Chikezi Patrick, was arrested for allegedly duping a school headmistress of over N12 million in Selangor, Malaysia.