Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Police has busted the country’s ‘biggest ever’ job fraud and arrested the main accused from Uttar Pradesh. The Economic Offenses Wing (EOW) of the Odisha Police said that it has busted a major job fraud scam operating from Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh. The scammers targeted unemployed youth in at least five states – Gujarat, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Odisha.
According to the Odisha Police, the EOW has arrested the main accused in the case, Zafar Ahmed (25), resident of Civil Lines, Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh. Zafar is an Engineer (B.Tech) by profession and is one of the masterminds of this scam. He was produced before a local court in Aligarh. Court approved transit remand of 5 days. He will be produced in Bhubaneswar court.
Deputy Inspector General, EOW, said, “We are very grateful to the Aligarh Police of Uttar Pradesh for helping us in arresting the accused. Investigation is on to ascertain the involvement of others in the process and the huge amount deposited by the fraudsters.” Still going on.” JN Pankaj.
Police said initial estimates suggest that at least 50,000 job seekers were duped across the country. Odisha Police said that the amount of fraud is in crores. 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 core group was assisted by around 50 call center employees. These employees were paid Rs 15,000 per month and were from Jamalpur and Aligarh regions of Uttar Pradesh.
Over 1,000 fake SIMs and 530 handsets and mobile phones were used for the scam, the EOW, Odisha Police said. Police said that the scammers were extremely quick and used to anticipate every move of the police and law enforcement agencies.
They used to make only WhatsApp voice calls using fake SIM cards. He made sure to save his mobile number related to the name of the scheme to avoid caller detection. So that if someone checks his/her name on “True Caller” it will show the name of the scheme.
The police said that the scammers maintained a strict discipline of not using their personal phones for the fraud. Around 100 Mule bank accounts were used in this scam. He withdrew money only from the “Jan Seva Kendra” using the QR code of the Jan Seva Kendra and the mule account. With such moves, he ensured zero trail through phone or bank accounts.
Police said the scammers used to develop a website that looked like a government website, displaying government job advertisements mainly targeting health or skills department jobs, some to lure and deceive job seekers. Used to use “Prime Minister Schemes”.
The fraudsters also placed advertisements in local newspapers but maintained that they would use fake identities and use WhatsApp calls or other such systems and transact money through mule bank accounts only.
They used to charge candidates from Rs 3000 to Rs 50,000 for registration, interview training and other types of events, depending on how much the candidates trust them.
Generally, they will select all the candidates who have registered/ applied for the job. Odisha Police said that in order to win the confidence of the candidates, they insisted that they work only through their official website.