KOCHI: Even after Norka Roots, a state-run agency has been entrusted to recruit nurses and housemaids to 18 countries, including GCC nations, hundreds of nursing job aspirants still fall prey to overseas recruitment fraud. Though Kochi City Police are carrying out investigations in these cases, the key accused in most of the cases are yet to be arrested. According to the police, two to three overseas recruitment fraud cases are reported in the city every week.
Recently over 80 nurses had come out against a Kochi-based firm ‘George International’ for duping them of lakhs of rupees after being promised jobs in Kuwait, Sharjah and Canada. However, the masterminds of the big fraud amounting to about `2.5 crore — Anish Jose, Adarsh Jose and George T George — are still absconding. Though the police arrested Vineetha Mathew, an employee of the firm last Thursday, she is only a small fry in the case. Earlier, around 80 nurses had complained that they were duped. However, now the number has increased to more than 200, according to the police.
Anish Jose and Adarsh Jose, who are brothers, and George T Jose, their friend, have been operating the firm since 2017 though the licence holder is Lissy George as per an agreement. Anish masterminded the fraud from Kuwait while others assisted him from Kochi. “They collected money from job aspirants as the fee for certificate attestation, visa processing and other requirements through the savings bank accounts of George and Adarsh. The job aspirants came to know that they lost their money when they approached the agency for getting their money back after they failed to get the visa promised by the agency. The agency had failed to deliver their money back,” said a police officer. According to him, an investigation with the assistance of the cyber cell is under way.
George and Adarsh had used about 20 SIM cards. When the fraud came to light they switched off all the numbers. “We get different locations while tracking the mobile phone numbers,” said the officer, who is part of the investigation team. Vineetha Mathew was arrested after police found a transaction of `6.5 lakh through her bank account. “The arrested was an employee of the firm and she left Kochi after switching off her mobile phone in December last year. She was arrested following an investigation conducted at her residence at Anakkara in Idukki,” said an officer.
The Ernakulam South Police registered the case following a complaint lodged by Bincy Jacob, a native of Palakkad, who was cheated after offering visa to Kuwait for a nursing job. The agency offered jobs in Kuwait Ministry of Health and Kuwait Oil Company, according to the complaint. Ernakulam South CI Aneesh K G is heading the investigation.Modus operandiRecruitment agencies post advertisements via social media. They contact job aspirants based on a database of the candidates in their possession. Once a person approaches them they follow it up frequently so as to have a rapport with the job aspirant. After winning the trust of the job aspirants they collect an amount ranging from `10,000 to 10 lakh citing fee for attestation and visa processing.