Chennai,  The Puducherry police's Cyber Crime Cell on Friday arrested a Nigerian national for cheating a woman of 5.25 lakh, by impersonating a senior official with the French Embassy and promising her a good job at a French airport.

Adewale Samson, 31, of Lagos, was was arrested from Bengaluru's Yelahanka.

The Cyber Crime Cell, in a statement, said that Jasleen Mario, an employee of a private airline, had applied on several job sites for overseas employment and had received a mail from a person named Gerard Mulliez about a prospective job on August 4, 2020. The woman contacted him the next day and enquired about the job.

The man assured her the job and told her that a woman named Vianne from the French Embassy would contact her, it said. Mario received a call on August 6, 2020, from someone claiming to be from the French Embassy, New Delhi, and asking her to deposit an amount of Rs 36,500 online as processing fee. She transferred the amount to the account details mentioned in the mail sent to her.

Mario had then reported that that she received regular calls asking her to transfer Rs 64,000 for IELTS examination fee, Rs 2.64 lakh as visa processing fee, Rs 87,000 for getting an anti-terrorist certificate, and Rs 73,400 for getting a gate pass. She, in all, paid a sum of Rs 5,25,400 on various dates in August 2020.

She waited for the offer letter for a few weeks but did not receive anything. After unsuccessfully trying to establish contact with the people who had extracted money from her, she then lodged a complaint with the Cyber Crime Cell.

The Cyber Cell registered case against unidentified people under Sections 419 and 420 of the Indian Penal Code and 66-D of Information Technology Act, 2000 and arrested the Nigerian national.

It said that the hunt is on for the others involved in the cheating and impersonation.