Noida: Four men were arrested on Wednesday for allegedly running a fake office from Noida, duping over 100 job seekers across India on the pretext of employing them on cruise ships, police said, adding that they were operating from a fake office in Sector 132, Noida.
Officials said in the last one year, the suspects Rahul, 25, a graduate and resident of Jalaun, Uttar Pradesh; Prashant, 25, a graduate from Aligarh; Saif, 25, a graduate from Kanpur; (all single names)and Vishal Sharma, 20, a BCA student from Noida — allegedly received around ₹1 crore in two bank accounts.
Officials said the suspects were arrested fromtheir fake marine officefollowing multiple complaints filed against the suspects from states including Kerala, West Bengal, and Uttar Pradesh. “We learnt that the gang was operating from Gautam Budh Nagar after which a team was formed,” said a senior police officer, requesting anonymity.
With the help of electronic surveillance, a joint team of the Cybercrime Branch and Sector 126 police raided their bogus marine office in Sector 132, Noida on Tuesday and took them into custody for interrogation.
An investigation revealed that the suspects had been operating in Noida for the past year, frequently changing their locations from Sector 62 to now Sector 132. “In two to three days, they had plans to shift to another location,” said Vijay Rana, station house officer (SHO), Cybercrime Branch.
Explaining their modus operandi, the SHO said, “The suspects collected job seekers’ contact details from employment websites and later contacted them with job offers, such as for engineers on cruise ships.”
“On the pretext of providing jobs, they would collect resumes and call candidates to their Noida office for interviews. Once the visiting victims believed the firm to be genuine, they were charged between ₹1 lakh and ₹1.20 lakh for employment,” the SHO added.
“Documents revealed that a woman from Telangana had also visited the office for an interview before we raided it. We have informed her about the fraud,” the officer said.
Police seized three laptops, seven mobile phones, 26 call data sheets, four joining letters, and other documents from their possession.
The suspects were booked under relevant sections of cheating and criminal conspiracy under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the IT Act at the Cybercrime Branch police station. Further investigation is underway.