Fake Job Racket Busted, Four Held

CHENNAI: An elaborate job racket involving four youth, including two school dropouts, was busted by sleuths from Central Crime Branch (CCB). All four were nabbed after one of their victims grew suspicous about the ‘counselling’ conducted by them at Ariyalur district three months ago.

The quartet lured job aspirants from the remote Olayur village in Ariyalur district and made them cough up several lakhs to get appointed in a fictitious government scheme, with one of them posing as Additional Director in the Adi Dravida & Tribal Welfare department.

The duo was identified as Karthikeyan aka Karthik (22), of Perambur, a Class X dropout and the mastermind. His partner in crime Arun (19), another school dropout from the neighbourhood, was picked up following a complaint from Selvam, an engineering graduate, one of the victims who lost their money.

Preliminary investigations revealed that Karthik’s second wife was from Olaiyur and the suspect made frequent visits there. He learnt that there were several youngsters and graduates looking for government jobs.

Hatching a plot to con the aspirants, he sought Arun’s help and the duo also roped in Mariasoosai Gabriel (22), an arts graduate who worked at a desktop publishing centre at Egmore and Sandeep (23) of Vyasarapadi.

Mariasoosai arranged the fake appointment orders for the fictitious jobs offered in the CM’s cell, while Sandeep arranged red beacon lights and a government-approved emblem for the car used by the fake government official.

Sandeep also doubled up as Karthik’s driver, while Arun posed as Assistant Security Officer (ASO) to Karthik and provided testimony to the job offers in a convincing manner. The quartet even got the help of the Village Administrative Officer (VAO) for organising ‘counselling’. They had collected between `65,000-`1 lakh from aspirants, besides issuing appointment orders.

During interrogation, it came to light that Karthik had earlier posed as a sub-Inspector and smuggled red sanders in an ambulance from Andhra Pradesh. All four were arrested and remanded in judicial custody on Tuesday.

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