Lucknow resident arrested for cheating job aspirants of ₹1 crore

Mumbai cyber police arrested a 29-year-old from Lucknow for allegedly running a job racket and duping dozens of job aspirants to the tune of ₹1 crore, officials said

Mumbai cyber police arrested a 29-year-old from Lucknow for allegedly running a job racket and duping dozens of job aspirants to the tune of ₹1 crore, officials said.

Image for representation. (File photo)

The accused, Shailendra Bharti, director of GDAS Business Solutions Pvt Ltd, has been arrested following a complaint lodged by S Vidya Raju, 49, who he cheated of ₹26.09 lakh.

According to the police, Bharti, with the help of his friends, would steal data of job aspirants from various job portals and then contact them and offer jobs as per their requirements promising lucrative salaries. He would mostly target individuals looking for senior positions and offer posts like deputy general managers to most of them. Later, in the name of various procedural expenditures and charges, he would extract money from the victims.

“In this case, Bharti had offered Raju a job in a well-known company and to gain her trust also telephonically interviewed her, posing as a senior executive from the company. Later, when she failed to get the job. When she demanded her money back, the accused took more money from her in the name of a refund process,” said a cyber police official.

Police officials said Bharti duped the woman between September 15, 2018, and August 10, 2020, to the tune of ₹26.09 lakh. Analysis of his bank account data and technical investigation led assistant police inspector Shriniwas Kamuni and his team from East region cyber police station to Lucknow from where they arrested Bharti on November 16. The police team seized chequebooks and passbooks of six bank accounts and five mobile handsets and three SIM cards from him.

“Bharti, who is a science graduate, earlier worked in a job recruitment company and from there he thought of opening his own job/placement company and duping people in the name of offering them job. From the fraudulently obtained money he wanted to open an imitation jewellery business,” said Rajesh Nagawde, senior inspector of East region cyber police station.

The officials said the bank accounts were used to receive the amount from victims and analysis of these six bank accounts revealed that there were transactions worth ₹1 crore in the recent past. Deputy commissioner of police, Cyber, Dr Rashmi Karandikar said the accused has been remanded to judicial custody till Monday.