Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offences Wing of Odisha Police’s Crime Branch Saturday said it has unearthed a massive job scam, with an estimated 50,000 victims across the country, and arrested a person from Uttar Pradesh.
EOW Deputy Inspector General Jay Narayan Pankaj said that the scam was being operated from Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh by a group of tech-savvy people who created fake government websites and put up job advertisements to attract job seekers.
Apart from Odisha, job seekers from Gujarat, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal were targetted and duped by the fraudsters, he said, adding there may be around 50,000 victims across the country as per early estimates.
Zafar Ahmed (25), one of the prime accused, was arrested by the EOW from Civil Lines area in Aligarh. He is an engineer by profession.
The core group, which comprised engineers, was assisted by 50 employees of a call centre, who were paid Rs 15,000 per month and they hail from Jamalpur and Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh.
More than 1,000 SIM cards and 530 mobile handsets were used by the fraudsters, he said.
Around 100 mule bank accounts were used and fraudsters used to withdraw money only from Jan Seva Kendra, Pankaj added.
PTI