Man cheated by job agency in 2015 cheats 80 others over fake jobs, arrested

A 38-year-old man, Jakir Daud Khan, was arrested for cheating over 80 people of ₹89 lakh in a Dubai job fraud, after being previously defrauded himself.

A 28-year-old man who was cheated of ₹80,000 in 2015 on the pretext of getting a job in Dubai turned to cheating others using the same modus operandi. That man, now 38, was arrested earlier this week for cheating more than 80 people of at least ₹89 lakh in an overseas job fraud racket, police said on Friday. The accused was identified as Jakir Daud Khan.

The accused was identified as Jakir Daud Khan. (Representational image)

Police said that Khan was on the run for three years in a case being investigated by the Delhi Police’s economic offences wing (EOW). He was tracked down to Padgha in Thane, Maharashtra and arrested on Tuesday.

“In 2015, Khan, who is from Aurahi village in Deoria district of Uttar Pradesh, applied for a passport to seek overseas employment. He approached an agent in Mumbai, paid ₹80,000 and handed over his passport to get a visa for Dubai. However, the agent defrauded him and fled. After this experience, Khan decided to cheat people the same way he had been cheated. Through the man who cheated him, he had met other fake recruitment agents involved in overseas job placements. He started working as a commission-based agent in the same field,” said deputy commissioner of police (special cell) Amit Kaushik.

Police got on the track of Khan in September 2022 when aresident of Gurugram, Dharmendra Kumar, lodged a complaint with EOW in Delhi saying that a placement agency in Janakpuri in west Delhi defrauded him of ₹90,000 on the pretext of a job offer in Dubai. Kumar said that the agency employees took his passport and gave him a forged United Arab Emirates (UAE) visa and an invalid air ticket.

EOW registered a case of cheating, forgery, and criminal conspiracy. DCP Kaushik said that more than 80 similar complaints were filed in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Bihar, and investigation revealed the role of another overseas job consultancy firm.

“The Janakpuri job consultation firm and the overseas firm were unregistered with the Ministry of External Affairs. They targeted job aspirants in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Bihar. They charged between ₹50,000 and ₹1.20 lakh from each victim on the pretext of getting them jobs in Dubai. The total amount they stole from their victims was ₹88,87,800 for 59 forged visas and 364 retained passports,” said DCP Kaushik.

On December 16, 2022, EOW arrested Ram Anmol Thakur, Gulbahar Ali, and Shruti and Arshad (single names), and recovered the passports the accused had seized from victims, police said. A pistol, ₹2.55 lakh cash and some electronic devices were also recovered, said police. Two more accused, Mohammad Saddam and Mohammad Tasleem, were arrested later, said police.

From the arrested accused, police learned about Khan’s involvement but were unable to find him, officers said. So he was declared a proclaimed offender in February 2024 and a ₹50,000 reward was announced for his arrest. Khan’s location was traced through technical investigation and human intelligence gathering, police added.