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Man and wife held for duping families seeking domestic helps
New Delhi: A 24-year-old man would pose as an employee of a placement agency and his 22-year-old wife would pretend to be domestic help, as they went about duping
New Delhi: A 24-year-old man would pose as an employee of a placement agency and his 22-year-old wife would pretend to be domestic help, as they went about duping many south Delhi residents over more than a year, the police said on Monday after nabbing the young couple.
Chinmoy Biswal, deputy commissioner of police (south-east), identified the arrested couple as Gaurav Mandal and his wife Sita. Both worked as daily wage labourers before Mandal’s stint as a helper with a placement agency helped come up with the idea of this fraud.
It was a simple modus operandi with limited returns, but effective and repetitive, Biswal said, adding that they have confessed to having duped at least eight families so far. “Their involvement could be much more, but most victims in such crimes do not approach the police,” said the DCP.
“At the placement agency, he learnt how to seek the help of websites to offer your services to the people,” said the officer.
So, when Mandal left his job, he allegedly used those websites to advertise a placement agency and posed as its employee. “When he received requests for a domestic help, he would take his wife to the house, leave her there to work as the domestic help and leave with two months of her salary as commission,” said Biswal.
In a day or two, his wife would escape from the house. “Sometimes, the woman would also steal some valuables before escaping,” he said.
The racket was busted when they allegedly targeted a family in Kalkaji. “The family paid ₹33,000 as commission to Mandal, but Sita escaped the same day. When the victim tried to reach the Greater Kailash office mentioned in the advertisement she had seen, she realised it didn’t exist and she had been duped,” Biswal said.
On Monday, the police used technical surveillance to nab the couple from their home in Tughlaqabad.
