Odisha police crack one of India’s biggest job scams

At least 50,000 jobseekers from five States were duped of crores of rupees

The Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of the Odisha police has cracked one of the biggest scams in India, with at least 50,000 jobseekers having been duped of crores of rupees.

“The EOW unearthed the job fraud being run from Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh. This scam targeted the desperate and innocent jobseekers in at least five States — Gujarat, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Odisha,” said Jai Narayan Pankaj, Inspector-General of Police (EOW).

Mr. Pankaj said early estimates suggested at least 50,000 jobseekers across the country were duped of crores.

“The scam was being run by a group of tech-savvy engineers from Uttar Pradesh with the help of some expert website developers. This core group was assisted by around 50 call centre employees. These employees were paid ₹15,000 per month and were from Jamalpur and Aligarh localities of Uttar Pradesh,” he said.

The modus operandi of the scamsters came to light after Zafar Ahmed (25) from Aligarh was arrested. Ahmed, said to be one of the masterminds of the scam, is an engineer by profession.  In fact, there are four scamsters — of them three are cousin brothers, all engineers. They had hired a person having expertise in website development.

According to the EOW, Ahmed was produced before a local court in Aligarh which granted five-day remand. He would be produced before the court in Bhubaneswar.

These scamsters would develop websites identical to government portals displaying the job advertisement, mainly targeting health or skill department jobs, some using ‘Pradhan-Mantri schemes’ to attract and deceive jobseekers, the Odisha EOW said.