CHENNAI: The city police on Saturday arrested a six-member gang, including one woman, from north India that was running a fake job racket and luring students and unemployed youth by claiming to be recruiters for leading corporate firms.
The accused, identified as Krishnakumar Bhagat (28) from Jharkhand, and Shivkumar (60), Rajan Kumar (33), Anuj Chuk (23), Anil Goutham (30) and Nisha Gupta (23) from New Delhi, were nabbed from Ranganathan street in Mambalam even as they attempted to flee the city.
The case stems from a complaint filed by YES Bank Limited’s southern region human resources department head, Shrirangarajan, who petitioned the police commissioner that a few people claiming to represent the bank had conducted a fake campus placement session at the Chennai Institute of Technology in Kanchipuram and handed out appointment orders through the bank’s official e-mail recently.
Subsequent investigations revealed that the group had hacked into the company’s e-mail and sent representation to the college expressing interest to conduct campus interview while sitting in Mumbai. Accordingly, a trio from New Delhi, Abdul Mishra, Akash Agarwal and Krishnakumar conducted fake interviews in the college. It was also found out that the trio had conducted a similar interview at the SNS Engineering College in Coimbatore and handed out appointment orders to 17 students.
On May 8, the gang set up a fake interview and recruitment session after booking four rooms at Sahitya hotel on Thanikachalam Road in T Nagar. The scamsters lured unsuspecting victims with the promise of getting them employment in L&T InfoTech and demanded two months’ salary - about `80,000 - from each candidate upon provision of appointment order.
Sensing something amiss, the hotel administration contacted L&T and when it was discovered that it was a scam, L&T alerted police and lodged a complaint at the Mambalam police station. Even as a special team led by south region joint commissioner A Arun rushed to the spot, the scamsters took to their heels. Eventually, all the six were nabbed from Ranganathan Street. Two laptops, a printer, two rubber stamps and several fake documents for handing out appointment orders were recovered from them. Police are also investigating whether the gang was involved in similar job rackets elsewhere.