Odisha Police busted what is considered as “India’s biggest ever” job fraud and arrested one of the primary accused from Uttar Pradesh. The scammers targeted the unemployed youth from mainly Gujarat, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Odisha.
The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Odisha Police exposed a huge job fraud scam being run from Aligarh. Police said early estimates suggest at least 50,000 job seekers across the country were duped. Deputy Inspector General, EOW JN Pankaj said, “We are very thankful to Aligarh Police of Uttar Pradesh for assisting us in arresting the accused. The investigation is still going on to unearth the involvement of others and the huge amount amassed by the fraudsters in this process.”
The scam was being run by a group of highly tech-savvy engineers from Uttar Pradesh with the help of some expert website developers. This group was assisted by around 50 call center employees. More than 1,000 fake SIMs and 530 handsets and Mobile phones were used for this scam.
Police said the scammers used only WhatsApp voice calls by using fake SIM cards. To avoid caller detection, they ensured to save their mobile number related to the Scheme name only so that if someone checks their name on “Truecaller” it will show the scheme name. Around 100 mule bank accounts were used in this scam. They withdrew money only from “Jan Seva Kendra” using the QR code of Jan Seva Kendra and mule account.
The scammers would develop a website resembling a government website displaying the government job advertisement mainly targeting Health or skill department jobs, some using Pradhan-Mantri schemes to attract and deceive the job seekers. They would charge candidates for registration, interview training to other kinds of events ranging from Rs 3000 to Rs 50,000. Generally, they would select all the candidates registered/applied for the job. To win the confidence of candidates they insisted that they work only through their official website.
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