India’s biggest job fraud busted by EOW, UP youth held in Odisha

Led by Ahmed, the scam was executed by a group of highly tech-savvy engineers from UP with help of website developers.

Image used for representational purpose only. (File Photo)

BHUBANESWAR: A 25-year-old from Uttar Pradesh who had allegedly cheated about 50,000 youths to the tune of Rs 15 crore in promise for jobs was arrested by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Crime Branch in what is billed as India’s biggest employment fraud that used technology for the con job.

Zafar Ahmed, a native of Aligarh and an engineer by profession, was held by the EOW from UP. He is accused of defrauding youngsters across states such as Odisha, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Gujarat.

Led by Ahmed, the scam was executed by a group of highly tech-savvy engineers from UP with help of website developers.  The core group of fraudsters was assisted by about 50 call centre employees drawn mostly from Jamalpur and Aligarh who were reportedly paid Rs 15,000 per month.

According to EOW IG Jai Narayan Pankaj, the accused used more than 1,000 fake SIM cards and 530 mobile phones to cheat the job aspirants. To keep the police at bay, they contacted the aspirants only on WhatsApp voice calls.

The fraudsters used to save their mobile phone numbers using the names of fake schemes to instil confidence among the job aspirants if they tried to verify the contact details on Truecaller. By opening about 100 mule bank accounts, the group withdrew the cheated money only through Jan Seva Kendras by using quick response (QR) codes. There are many Jan Seva Kendras in UP and the accused withdrew the cash by paying a 10 per cent commission to the officials.  

India’s biggest job fraud busted by EOW

“The scamsters developed websites which resembled government portals. They uploaded advertisements of employment opportunities which looked similar to government jobs to lure the aspirants. They were mainly promising jobs in health and skill departments. The frauds used names of some fake schemes with Pradhan Mantri as their prefixes to deceive the job aspirants,” said Pankaj.

They also created fake websites such as ‘Jeevan Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (www.jssy.in), Bharatiya Jana Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (www.bjsry.in), Gramin Samaj Manav Swasthya Seva (www.gsmsss.in ) to win the confidence of the job aspirants. Advertisements were published in local newspapers of Odisha by using fake identities and payments were made through mule bank accounts to avoid getting caught. Each job aspirant was charged Rs 3,000 to Rs 50,000 towards registration, interview and training purposes.

The fraud amount could be much more than Rs 15 crore and the investigation is continuing to unearth more details, said Pankaj. “EOW registered a case in this connection in September and has been investigating it for the last three months. The racket was active since 2020 and the accused amassed huge property worth crores of rupees in Aligarh with the ill-gotten money,” he said.

Meanwhile, Ahmed, who was arrested with the assistance of UP Police, was produced before a court in Aligarh and brought to Odisha on transit remand.