"He has cheated a woman through Facebook," Jakarta Metropolitan Police spokesman Senior Commissioner Baharudin Djafar said here on Thursday.
He said the police arrested James and Sanny while they were at the Roxy shopping center in Central Jakarta on Wednesday night.
The chief of the cyber crime sub-directorate of the Jakarta Metropolitan Police`s Special Crime Investigation Directorate, Adjunct Senior Commissioner Hermawan, said that initially James got acquainted with a woman known as NH through Facebook.
He introduced himself as John Danny, a British infantry soldier from Scotland, and the relationship later developed into a special one.
After the relationship had gone on for some time, James said he would send NH US$5 million and jewelry he claimed would come from a high ranking state official.
Later, he asked NH to send him Rp60 million in cash to pay the cost of claiming the jewelry from the customs office.
"He then asked for Rp150 million more saying that the Rp60 million she had sent was not enough for paying customs," he said.
After several days however NH never received the jewelry Danny had promised to send to her. Finally, the victim reported the case to the police.
Hermawan said Sanny was involved in the scam because it was she who had received the money from NH.
He said James had used Sanny who is an Indonesian national to open bank accounts at Bank Mandiri and BCA to deposit the money from his criminal activity.
Hermawan believed James had often swindled people and therefore he called on those who had been cheated by him to report to the police.
"We have discovered a total of Rp2 billion in his bank accounts and believe the money came from cheating," he said.
Besides arresting the suspects, the police also confiscated Rp23 million in cash, Mandiri ATM cards, an international driving license in the name of James Williams and several cellphones from them.
They are now facing charges of violating the law on electronic transactions information.
The Jakarta police have uncovered five crimes committed through an internet service from January to July this year with suspects numbering five hailing from Nigeria and Liberia.
They have been involved in cheating using fake dollar bills, through an internet service and claimed to know high ranking state officials.
(T.T014/H-YH/HAJM/F001)
Editor: Priyambodo RH
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
