2 Africans held for duping Nabha factory owner, their Briton accomplice at large

PATIALA: Patiala police have arrested a West African and a Ghanaian for allegedly duping a Nabha-based factory owner who was elated over the prospect of selling his industrial unit to a "foreign-based" company being represented by them. The third accomplice from Britain is still at large.
Instead of paying the factory owner the deal money of Rs 4 crore, the accused rather duped him of Rs 3.5 lakh on the pretext that they would make payment in dollars saying the amount was required as fee to get the deal money released from a Delhi-based office which had received the payment from their African company.
Police said the accused were identified as Lewis from West Africa, Dusagar Iway from Ghana and William Jackson of Britain.
With the help of a local property dealer, with whom the arrested foreign nationals were in touch on Facebook and acted as a broker, the trio approached Pargat Singh for buying his closed down agricultural implements manufacturing unit in Nabha. The accused were introduced to Pargat by one Bhardwaj (single name mentioned in FIR) from Nabha.
"Bhardwaj contacted me and said that a foreign company was interested in purchasing my factory for Rs 4 crore and I readily agreed to it. A few days ago, they told me that money had been sent from Africa by their company to a Delhi office," said Pargat, the complainant.
"They told me that they didn't have local currency and needed Rs 3.5 lakh as fee to get the money released. They asked me for it and I obliged. Yesterday, they again turned up and demanded Rs 1 crore for the same purpose. I suspected their intentions and called up the police. Police arrested them after Bhardwaj confessed that he was conspiring to dupe me along with the three others," Pargat added.
Police have registered a case under sections 406 (breach of trust), 420 (cheating) and 120-B (conspiracy) of the IPC against all the four accused.
Investigating officer, sub-inspector Guriqbal Singh said that the accused were nabbed on Tuesday. "They were produced in the court on Wednesday afternoon and sent to judicial custody for 14 days. They were in India since February 20," he added.