The Ambala police have busted an interstate gang of fraudsters with the arrest of three men involved in duping unemployed people on the pretext of providing government jobs.
The accused have reportedly cheated nearly 40 people belonging to Haryana, Rajasthan and some southern states.
As per the information, Sohan Lal, a resident of Babyal village and some other victims, who were duped by the accused, had submitted a complaint on April 21 last year.
The accused had taken nearly Rs 60 lakh from the complainants on the pretext of providing jobs in government departments. The accused were using fake names, including a name Yogesh Sharma, to dupe people.
During investigation, the Economic Offences Wing of the Ambala Police arrested Ajay Kumar, a resident of Ladwa, on May 12. Ajay was arrested and produced before a court which sent him to 10-day police remand.
During the remand, it came to light that Ajay was using fake names to dupe people. A similar case was registered against him in Delhi and he was presently out on bail.
During further investigation, Sunil Kumar, alias Sahil, a resident of Jhajjar, was arrested on May 15 and Waris Alam, alias Sameer, a resident of Bihar was arrested on May 17. After the competition of remand, the accused have been sent to judicial custody.
As per the officials, the accused used to claim to have high-level connections within government departments.
To ensnare young job seekers, they would hand them fake joining letters. To prevent the youths from becoming suspicious, the accused would assign them to work at various locations for a period of two to three months, personally paying their salaries for those months out of their own pockets.
This led the victims to believe that their jobs were secure, thereby ensuring that the gang’s fraudulent scheme went undetected.
Investigating Officer of the Economic Offences Wing Narender Kumar said, “The accused used to place online advertisements and target the unemployed people. They used to smartly dupe the people who used to contact them. They were operating online. After obtaining the documents, the accused used to get the victims engaged in petty jobs like scanning of old documents on the pretext of training, through placement agencies and give salaries for a couple of months from their own pockets to win their trust. The salary used to be sent in a manner with a message, like it was sent through the treasury. By giving salary, they used to win the trust of the victims so that can share the information with more people, making it easy to target and dupe more people. No involvement of any government official has come to light so far.”
The police have recovered fake documents and materials from the possession of the arrested accused. The Economic Offences Wing has recovered 17 forged stamps of various departments, including the Food Corporation of India, the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Excise and Taxation Department, and Railways.
Besides the stamps, eight fake appointment letters of different departments, including railways, were also recovered. During the investigation, the police has recovered Rs 2 lakh cash, mobiles and sim cards, procured on fake IDs.
Economic Offences Wing In-charge Paramvir Singh, said “The accused were smartly duping the unemployed people by claiming to have connections with high-ranked officials. Some more accused of the gang have also been identified and efforts are being to arrest them. The matter is still under investigation. The youngsters should not trust such people who act like middlemen to avoid losing their money.”
