Seven arrested for duping youths on pretext of providing jobs

Seven persons, including two employees of Ministry of Rural Development, were arrested for allegedly cheating youths on the pretext of providing them jobs in the state-owned ONGC, police said Tuesday.

The accused were identified as Jagdish Raj (58), Sandeep Kumar (31), Wasim (28), Ankit Gupta (32), Vishal Goel (27), Suman Saurabh (32) and Kishore Kunal (32), they said.

Based on a complaint filed by the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), a case was registered, police said.

During investigation, it surfaced that the victims received emails from official email account of ONGC and were interviewed at Krishi Bhawan, said Rajiv Ranjan, Additional Commissioner of Police (crime) The victims were introduced to a man named Randhir Singh who took Rs 22 lakhs from them for providing jobs in ONGC, he said.

Police kept a tab on cab bookings, hotel reservations and online shopping of the accused done using their mobile phones. Subsequently, the accused Kishore Kunal was nabbed from his office in Laxmi Nagar, he added.

During interrogation, It was revealed that one person named Ravi Chandar, who ran a consultancy firm in Hyderabad used to zero down on youths and introduce them to Kunal.

The accused Kunal used to lure candidates claiming his brother-in-law was an ONGC employee and prepared fake interview call letters with the help of his other associates, the senior officer said.

The accused even spoofed land line numbers of government agencies to call the victims, the officer added.

He said the accused Jagdish Raj, an employee in the Ministry of Rural Development, used to arrange the office of any officer who was on leave and his other associate Sandeep Kumar used to ensure the entry of victims to the office while other accused conducted posed as officers and conducted interviews.

(This article has not been edited by Zeebiz editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)