3 dupe over 1,000 people on pretext of jobs at Reliance Jio

The accused have been identified as Vishal alias Gulshan Mahendra Pratap Singh, 30, Rajan alias Harshit Dinesh Kumar Singh, 24, and Keshav Kumar Babu Prasad Singh, 21. The trio was arrested last week

Navi Mumbai: Three persons from a gang have been arrested recently for duping more than 1,000 people across the country on the pretext of providing jobs at Reliance Jio, using forged trademark, email IDs and letterheads of the company.

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The accused have been identified as Vishal alias Gulshan Mahendra Pratap Singh, 30, Rajan alias Harshit Dinesh Kumar Singh, 24, and Keshav Kumar Babu Prasad Singh, 21. The trio was arrested last week.

According to the police, around 33 people had written to authorities of Reliance Jio, informing them about the cheating case, after which Mumbai-based deputy manager of the company, Sudhir Nair, filed an official complaint. An FIR was registered in the Rabale police station in the first week of July.

“During technical investigations, we traced the whereabouts of the accused to Noida, Uttar Pradesh. We seized around seven SIM cards, 12 mobile phones and details of 18 bank accounts, which have been seized. We haven’t got bank statements, hence, we do not know the money available in the account,” Gajanan Kadam, police inspector, cyber cell unit of Navi Mumbai.

From the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal, Navi Mumbai police acquired the information of 18 complaints in which the gang is suspected to have cheated the aspirants, Kadam said.

“Till now, we have got in touch with two complainants of Navi Mumbai, two from Pune and one from Karnataka. After looking into the diaries maintained by the accused, it is suspected that at least 1,000 people have been cheated. However, not everyone has reported the fraud to the police,” the officer added. The victims are primarily from Gujarat, Telangana, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Kerala and Rajasthan.

Kadam said that the accused had bank accounts in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal in the name of several other persons.

“Taking advantage of the poverty, the accused chose vulnerable people who would get SIM cards and bank accounts registered in their name against some money for the accused. These SIM cards and bank accounts were being used by the accused in the crime,” police officials said.

The trio, who are now in judicial custody and would be handed over to Pune police, were booked under section 420 (cheating) of the IPC and 66 D (cheating by personation) of the IT Act.

When contacted, a Reliance Spokesperson said they were aware of the matter. However, he declined to further comment on the matter since the investigation was on.