HYDERABAD: Next time you receive a WhatsApp message from HR consultancies offering a job, watch out! Fake job rackets are mushrooming in the city, shattering dreams of several aspirants. On Tuesday, cops busted an eight-member gang that duped gullible youth of at least Rs 2 crore. Four of them in the gang were engineering graduates. According to the cops, the group set up a fake consultancy in the name of MVM Technologies in Ameetpet and sent out WhatsApp messages to aspirants offering help in finding a job. To ensure that aspirants don’t smell anything fishy, they conducted interviews at bank premises and private hotels, issued fake offer letters from fake email IDs and even provided training.
Police suspect they cheated over 80 people in just 9 months by promising jobs with SBI, IT Department, Railways and even in IT firms. Aspirants who approached the firm were asked to pay up Rs 10 lakh for a job, and many of them paid an advance amount varying from Rs 3 to Rs 4 lakh. In case of bank jobs, they even sent aspirants to meet the ‘HR’ at bank premises.
Meaning, one gang member would go to the bank and sit in the visitors area pretending to be the HR executive. He would then collect signatures from applicants and ask them to attend a training programme at a private training institute. The institute was also being paid handsomely by the firm.
The victims, who paid `5 lakh were asked to wait for 45 days to get the joining letter saying there was some technical glitch. After waiting for eight long months, one of the aspirants lodged a complaint with SR Nagar police. Six such complaints have been received so far by the city police. Cops say the prime accused made `1 crore in this manner and blew most of it on pleasure trips to Thailand and Maldives.