Aussie cheated by Hyderabad gang

A 60-year-old Australian national, who became friends with a woman from Hyderabad on a dating website, came all the way to the city based on her invite, only to find that she, along with her accomplices including a Nigerian, had swindled a whopping $95,000 from him.

Two of the accomplices, Moshin Agha (29), a resident of Tolichowki, and Hassani Barua (31), a Nigerian national and resident of Kokapet, were arrested by the Crime Investigation Department (CID) within three hours of receiving a complaint from the victim here on Wednesday. The woman and three others are absconding.

In his complaint, the Australian citizen told CID officials he had come across the profile of a woman, Sarah Haimish, on a dating website and in due course of time, they got close through chats and mails to the extent that both decided to get married.The woman had told him that she too was of Australian origin and was engaged in supplying fabrics and gems in India. However, she was stuck here since she had to ‘get dues worth $2.1 million from the government’, for which she had to ‘pay’ $210,000



as tax settlement.

She later asked the complainant to loan her the amount so that she could return to Australia, and he unsuspectingly transferred $95,000 into an Axis Bank account maintained by Moshin Agha.In between, the woman invited him to Hyderabad as well. Accordingly, he reached the city and was searching for her, when he realised he had been taken for a ride, after which he approached the CID.

The CID found that Agha and Barua along with the woman and three others were behind the fraud and that they had shared the amount between themselves.“With details from the victim, we examined the bank account details and nabbed Agha and Barua,” CID Additional SP U Rammohan said.

The CID has frozen Rs 20 lakh in the suspect’s account. Pen drives, laptops, mobile phones and other material were seized from them as well.Both Agha and Barua have reportedly confessed that they sent photos of an unknown but attractive woman to convince the Australian. Inquiries by the CID revealed that Agha was working as a money transfer agent while Barua was into business.