THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The city cyber police have arrested a four-member gang that functioned from New Delhi for allegedly duping several youngsters on the pretext of providing them job and migration opportunities in European countries.
Alappuzha native Sreerag Kamalasanan, Kayamkulam native Viswambharan, Thrissur native Satheesh Kumar and Thiruvananthapuram native Ashik were arrested by a special police team. The arrested men were settled in Mumbai and ran their fraudulent activities from various cities. The arrests were made on the basis of a complaint filed by a victim, who was duped of `50 lakh in the pretext of securing him a job in a Canadian firm.
The police said Sreerag was the kingpin of the racket that lured the victims after obtaining their details from a leading job portal. The first step in the modus operandi is to create a website in the name of a leading company. Then pretending that they want to hire employees, the accused bought the data of people who are willing to relocate abroad from the job portal.
The victims were first interviewed over the phone and subsequently, they were interviewed by female foreign nationals over the internet to earn their trust. After holding the interview, the gullible youngsters were given offer letters. Later, the accused charged hefty amounts from these people after offering them emigration services.
Sreerag employed the service of foreign female nationals for his activities by fraud, the police said. After floating a bogus airline company, he invited applications from foreign female nationals for recruitment to his airline company. Those who had applied were made to talk to the scam victims in India after convincing them that those acts were part of a customer relation test.
The victims were told to deposit cash to UPIDs of various banks. The accused travelled to various main Indian cities, took luxury apartments on rent and showed it as the address of the branches of their firm. The SIM cards were obtained at these addresses and the WIFI service of the apartments were used to commit fraud. The accused regularly destroyed electronic gadgets to obliterate evidence. It was by following the bank transactions that the police tracked them down.