Indian authorities arrested no fewer than 23 Nigerians in the last 30 days for illegally entering the Asian country, local media reported.

The Nigerians were said to have entered the country through the Bangladesh border. The Diplomat reported that the border is fast becoming an entry point for Nigerians to enter India illegally.

The police apprehended the Nigerians from Meghalaya and Assam after they entered India through a porous stretch in Tripura in the Northeast, which borders Bangladesh.

Meghalaya police chief R Chandranathan said,

“We are taking this case very seriously. All ramifications and possibilities are being probed”.

The probe has unravelled vital leads, like all Nigerians who were travelling in groups belong from the southern zone of the country, which is Christian dominated.

Bangladeshi agents in Nigeria are responsible for their travel and itinerary who also might have helped facilitate their cross into India.

Their aim was to reach New Delhi where a large diaspora of Nigerians lives in the southern districts. Many Nigerians have also been convicted for drug peddling in India, but the police believe that these arrested men were motivated by the prospect of earning money through cybercrime.

The latest report of Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) revealed that Nigerians constituted about 40 per cent of foreigners arrested for drug crimes in India during 2017.

“If they are able to earn money through fraud, they might return through the same route to Bangladesh after making provisions for the transfer of the amount. And if they are convicted for crimes, then they would serve the jail sentence and then get deported. It’s a risk worth taking for them,” claimed a middle-rung official of Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI).

However, what concerns Indian security agencies is that the Nigerian nationals went unnoticed and were apprehended 200 kilometres into Assam and Meghalaya.

The development also establishes the existence of safe routes that facilitate the movement of people and commodities across the border and raises serious national security implications.