Hyderabad: The Cyberabad police have busted a major overseas job racket and arrested two persons, who cheated 241 job aspirants to the tune of Rs 2.5 crore.
The police said that the suspects launched a job consultancy firm and offered jobs to candidates in Malaysia, Georgia and Canada. The suspects, hailing from Andhra Pradesh, were identified as N Shashidhar Reddy and B Jagannadam.
The accused started Sunrise Tours and Consultancy Services in Sanath Nagar six months ago and published advertisements in all leading dailies in English, Telugu, Kannada and Tamil, offering jobs abroad. Their publicity attracted many job aspirants.
The suspects offered blue-collar jobs such as fish packer, labour, supervisor and helpers. They initially collected a registration fee and passports and other documents. Later, they would issue offer letters on payment of Rs 1.5 lakh by each candidate. Nearly 241 job aspirants fell into their trap and lost Rs 2.5 crore.
“Later, they would send the candidates to Delhi for a medical check-up and the visa processing. But the address was found fictitious. They then did a vanishing act by switching off their mobile phones and downing shutters to their office,” said Mr Shanawaz Qasim, joint commissioner of police, Cyberabad.
Six victims approached the police and filed complaints. Cases were registered against the accused. Police arrested them and recovered over Rs 1.65 crore from them.
Fraudsters were earlier victims
Shashidhar Reddy and Jagannadham themselves were victims of an overseas job racket and had got their fingers burnt by paying Rs 2.6 lakh each.
After being cheated, they became friends and hatched a plan to cheat other candidates. They took help of Nigerian nationals to create fake websites. One of the domains, www.monaco-quebec.com, is registered in the name of a Nigerian national, the police said. Shashidhar hails from Kadapa district, while Jagannadham is a resident of Vizia-nagaram district. They were duped by Siri Overseas Solu-tion in 2014, promising them jobs in Turkey. They got offers from other companies too. “But the domains were created by the suspects themselves and hosted on a common hosting service provider vbhostnet.com,” an official said.
