NEW DELHI: A 27-year-old man was apprehended for allegedly duping advocates and educated women under the pretext of providing jobs. He duped two women, including an advocate, by impersonating several government officials.
The accused, identified as Sagar Singh, a resident of Ghaziabad in UP and a B.Com graduate, maintained details of various jobs in the several departments, including MHA, and carried out profiling of their department heads online. “He approached the victims by either claiming close connections with these officials or by impersonating senior officers, assuring them that he could arrange jobs for them,” a senior police officer said.
A case was registered on Monday based on the statement of complainant Shikha Tiwari alleging that on June 10, she received a message from a woman advocate stating that the accused was competent for providing a job as mentioned in his profile.
It was later found that the accused had hacked the advocate’s profile and misused it to deceive her into paying money. The complainant also noticed a message sent from the accused’s mobile number on June 11, falsely issued in the name of the Education Department, which promised her a women’s seat in the Women Commission head office, said Deputy Commissioner of Police (Shahdara) Prashant Gautam.
She further received an email stating that any interested person could apply by paying an upfront processing fee of Rs 5,260. On the same day around 8.30 pm, she received another email confirming that her registration had been completed for the seat under the Member of Parliament quota.
The email included a registration number and informed her that she was eligible for the next elimination round leading to the interview list. The following day, on June 12, she received another email stating that she had been shortlisted among 15 candidates for the next round of interviews, the DCP said.
It was further mentioned that their team would communicate the time and date of the interview, and she was asked to pay Rs 12,500 and Rs 5,350 towards further processing. When the complainant attempted to contact the accused on the WhatsApp number provided, she received no response and later lodged a complaint. The investigation revealed that Rs 23,110 was transferred to an account in the name of Sagar Singh.
The mobile number used to contact the complainant and the email ID used for job-related communication were also traced to him. Singh had earlier duped a woman advocate of Rs 3.34 lakh by promising her the chairperson’s post in the Women’s Commission and later misused her Facebook ID to cheat the complainant with a fake job offer for co-head. He was arrested and found to have a prior criminal history.