Gandhinagar, Jul 10 (IANS): The Vadodara Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) on Friday arrested five African nationals from Delhi for allegedly cheating a Vadodara businessman of Rs 19.35 lakh on the pretext of selling CPU scrap.

The African gang was involved in a racket of turning coded US dollars into real money by trapping unsuspecting victims, the police said.

The Deputy Commissioner of Police, DCB, Jaydeepsinh Jadeja, told the media, "On July 4, the crime branch received a complaint from Rajesh Patel, an import-export businessman, alleging that he was cheated of Rs 19.35 lakh in an online scam by a gang that claimed to be selling CPU scrap."

"Our investigation revealed that the accused persons were based in Delhi. We then dispatched a team to Delhi and with the help of technical, scientific and human intelligence sources, the team arrested the five accused persons," Jadeja added.

The arrested persons have been identified as Benjamin Kouakou Ndri, Kaptu Ematurin Marie, Kitii Jacques Devalois, Martin Copere Ndimou and El Hadji Mahamane Toure. They were nabbed from the Chhattarpur area in Delhi.

According to the police, the accused had lured the trader into transferring Rs 19.35 lakh via IMPS in multiple instalments under the pretext of settling matters at the Kanpur Customs department. But they did not send across the CPU scrap as per their business deal for several days.

The police have also recovered 14 bundles with counterfeit $100 bills, two laptops and 18 mobile phones from the accused persons.