New Delhi, Sep 6 (IANS) The Delhi Police’s Anti-Auto Theft Squad (AATS), North District, has busted a fake call centre operating in the capital’s Sangam Vihar area and allegedly cheating unemployed persons on the pretext of providing jobs in reputed companies, and apprehended five accused, police said on Sunday.
The accused are aged between 19 and 30 years.
A police statement said that on September 1, the staff of AATS/North District received secret information regarding a suspected fraudulent call centre operating at Jharoda Majra, in Sangam Vihar. The accused were allegedly cheating unemployed persons on the pretext of providing jobs in reputed companies.
The information was verified, and a police team conducted a raid at the premises, during which the accused, Satish Chander Maurya alias Karan alias Harish, along with other tele-callers, was found operating the call centre.
Preliminary inquiry revealed that unemployed candidates were being contacted and offered jobs such as data entry operator, data analyst, web designer, and accountant and were allegedly induced to make payments at various stages of the recruitment process.
Officials said that a dedicated team, under the overall supervision of DCP, North, Niharika Bhatt, under the guidance of Additional DCP-I, North, Pukhraj Kamal Gupta and Additional DCP-II, North, Ram Dulesh Meena, and under the leadership of ACP, Operations, North District, Vishesh Dhatterwal and I/C, AATS, North, Inspector Sanjay Kumar Gupta, was constituted. The team also comprised SIs Heera Lal and Dinesh Singh, ASI Omprakash, HCs Sandeep, Ravinder, Shakti, and Alok, woman HC Pooja and constable Vikram.
Acting on the information developed during the investigation, the police team conducted a raid in Sangam Vihar in the Wazirabad area. During the raid, three accused persons were found actively operating the alleged fraudulent recruitment setup by contacting prospective job seekers and demanding money under various false pretexts.
Subsequently, a thorough search of the premises was conducted, leading to the recovery of nine mobile phones, a tablet, seven ATM/debit cards, two bank passbooks, three notepads containing mobile numbers, and Rs 6,730 in cash.
During the course of further investigation, it was revealed that the accused persons were allegedly sourcing the personal details of job seekers through an application named ‘Job Hai Support’, where candidates registered themselves and applied for various employment opportunities. The accused specifically targeted candidates who had applied for jobs with ‘Tata Motors’ and subsequently contacted them, posing as representatives associated with the recruitment process.
The accused allegedly misled the candidates by falsely representing that various payments were mandatory for completing different stages of recruitment and thereby induced them to make repeated payments under fabricated pretexts.
As the investigation progressed, the police team uncovered the involvement of two additional accused persons in the fraudulent recruitment network. Both were subsequently traced and apprehended, and their roles are being thoroughly examined.
According to the investigators, the accused persons allegedly adopted a systematic modus operandi to exploit unemployed job seekers by offering them employment in reputed companies. Initially, prospective candidates were contacted and asked to deposit Rs 499 towards courier charges. Once the initial payment was made, the accused allegedly continued to extract money by raising successive demands under various false pretexts.
The accused allegedly kept the victims engaged in the fraudulent recruitment process by creating one payment requirement after another. When a victim refused or expressed inability to make further payment, the accused would allegedly block the victim’s mobile number and abruptly discontinue communication, thereby abandoning the victim after extracting the maximum possible amount.
Police said that further investigation is underway to identify other associates, trace the financial transactions and ascertain the full extent of the fraud.
–IANS
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