By Our Correspondent
BHUBANESWAR: EOW unearthed a huge job fraud scam being run from Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh.This scam targeted the desperate & innocent job seekers youth in at least five states i.e.Gujarat, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Odisha.
EOW arrested one of the main accused namely Zafar Ahmed (25),s/o Zaffar Ahmad, of Civil lines, Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh in connection with EOW Ps Case No.17 dated 10.09.2022 u/s 467/486/471/420/120-B IPC. He is an engineer (B. Tech) by profession and one of the main masterminds of this scam. He was produced before local court in Aligarh. The court has been pleased to grant 5 days transit remand. He will be produced before the court at Bhubaneswar.
‘We are very thankful to Aligarh Police of Uttar Pradesh for assisting us in arresting the accused. Investigation is still going on to unearth the involvement of others and the huge amount amassed by the fraudsters in this process,’ EOW said.
Early estimates suggest at least 50,000 job seekers youth across the country were duped. Duped amount run in Crores.The scam was being run by a group of highly tech savvy engineers from UttarPradesh 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 of Jamalpur and Aligarh Locality of Uttar Pradesh. More than 1000 fake SIMs and 530 handsets/ Mobile were used for this scam.
They were extremely clever and anticipated every move of police/ law enforcement agencies. Generally they will use only WhatsApp voice calls by using fake SIM cards.
To avoid “true caller” detection, they ensured to mark/save their mobile number related to Scheme name only. So that if someone check their name on True caller it will show the scheme name. They maintained strict discipline not to use their personal phone to the phone usedin fraud/ scam (which they named as “Kaam wala Phone).
Around 100 mule bank accounts were used in this scam. They will withdraw money only from “Jan Seva Kendra” using the QR code of Jan Seva Kendra and mule account. There is plethora of such “Jan seva Kendra” in UP who happily gives the cash amount taking 10% commission.
By such clever moves they ensured they leave no trails either through phone or bank accounts.The scamsters would develop the website resembling a Govt website displaying the Govt job advertisement mainly targeting Health or skill department jobs, some using ‘Pradhan-Mantri schemes” to attract and deceive the job seekers.
Fake employment sites would be named like “Jeevan Swasthya Suraksha Yojana” www.jssy.in, “Bharatiya Jana Swasthya Suraksha Yojana”, www.bjsry.in, “Gramin Samaj Manav swasthya Seva” www.gsmsss.in etc.Sometimes they also give advertisement in local newspapers but ensured that they will use fake identity and use Whatsapp call or other such systems and transact money through mule bank accounts only.
They will charge candidates for registration to interview to training to other kinds of event ranging from Rs.3000 to 50,000 depending on to what extent candidates trust them.Generally they would select all the candidates registered/applied for job.
To win the confidence of candidate they insisted that they work only through their official website.They will receive money from candidates in the various mule accounts only.
18.Once they have completed the exercise suddenly the website and Call centers will go off.Then they will come up with some new website with new schemes on same pattern.
To take extra precaution they would throw all the mobile sets/ SIMS used in the “closed operations” in the nearby rivers.The mule bank accounts were collected by the accused from Rajasthan and the SIMS used by the fraudsters registered in the name of innocent persons
The fraudsters had been duping people since the year 2020 and have amassed a lot of property worth crores of rupees in Aligarh with the ill-gotten money.EOW would be approaching all concerned states as well as central agencies to alert them as well as to initiate investigations at their level too. EOW was working very hard on this case for last three months to detect this case.
So far this has been the most challenging case for EOW as the scamsters are very smart and researched/ pre-empted move of law enforcement authorities. By analyzing various clues and technical and physical surveillance, we could make first arrest in this case.
