1,000 duped with job promise in Dubai, 7 nabbed in Delhi

A total of 110 passports, eight laptops, 12 mobile phones and other incriminating materials used in the fraud were recovered from their possession

Seven people were arrested for allegedly running an interstate racket, which duped nearly 1,000 people of over ₹5 crore in the last five years, by making false promises of arranging jobs in Dubai as well as related visas for them, Delhi Police’s crime branch said on Monday.

The seven people were arrested last week. (HT PHOTO)

Police said that most of the victims were from Kerala.

A total of 110 passports, eight laptops, 12 mobile phones and other incriminating materials used in the fraud were recovered from their possession.

The suspects, including the racket kingpin, were arrested last week and they used to run the illegal activities from their office at Zakir Nagar in south Delhi, police added.

A senior crime branch officer, who asked not to be named, said that the racket was busted following investigation into a case of criminal breach of trust, cheating, impersonation and criminal conspiracy that was registered recently at the crime branch’s cyber cell police station following a cheating complaint received from one of the victims.

Special commissioner of police (crime) Ravindra Singh Yadav said the gang members used to float fake companies and claimed that they worked on behalf of genuine agents of registered job placement companies in the Gulf countries. They also got registered on online job portals and advertised their companies on social media platforms to lure job seekers. After obtaining the details of job aspirants from various job portals, they contacted them, said Yadav.

“Nearly 1,000 job aspirants from across the country, mostly from Kerala, have been duped by the gang. Each individual was charged ₹59,000 in the name of consultancy fees, medical check-ups and documentation charges. After cheating multiple people, the gang members used to avoid responding to their calls and text messages and shift their office to another location, from where they continued duping people. Till now, we have found seven such fake companies that the gang operated from different offices across Delhi since 2018,” said Yadav.

Police identified the mastermind as Inamul Haque Ansari alias Rizwan Ali, 32, who is a native of Bihar’s Darbhanga and was living at Zakir Nagar in south Delhi. The others have been identified as Tabish Hasmi, 26, Mohammad Tabrez Alam, 26, — also from Darbhanga — Tarique Shamsh, 26, Ekram Muzaffar, 19, Shankar Kumar Shah, 28, and Som Nath Kumar aka Somraj, 26.

The special CP said that Ansari disclosed that he lured local unemployed people, created their fake IDs, opened bank accounts and created a fictitious overseas travel company in their name. They were asked to sit in the front office rented by him. At the back end of the office, Ansari and others used to work as tele-callers and contacted job aspirants, added Yadav.