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हिन्दी 
LUCKNOW The Lucknow Police on Tuesday busted a job racket with the arrest of nine people, including four women, for allegedly running fake call centres that defrauded job seekers by posing as recruiters. They promised jobs in top companies, mostly airlines, IT and automobile companies, to extort money and vanished after issuing forged appointment letters.
“The joint operation by the southern surveillance cell, Cyber Crime Cell, and police teams from Banthra and Sarojini Nagar police stations led to back-to-back raids at two locations, one in Azad Bihar Colony and another near the Outer Ring Road underpass. A large cache of laptops, mobile phones, forged documents and digital evidence was seized,” said DCP (south) Nipun Agarwal.
“The gang was operating well-structured call centres that targeted unemployed youth across several states. They would impersonate HR personnel of reputed companies, conduct fake interviews over calls, and send forged appointment letters in exchange for money,” said Agarwal. “Over a hundred people are estimated to have been duped. Investigations are underway to identify all victims and trace the financial links,” he added.
Explaining the gang’s modus operandi, the DCP said it involved luring victims through phone calls, WhatsApp messages, and emails with promises of lucrative jobs. Once a candidate was hooked, they were asked to transfer money on the pretext of processing fees or training charges. The victims would then receive fake offer letters featuring logos and signatures of well-known firms, after which all contact would be severed.
“The suspects arrested from Azad Bihar Colony were identified as Ajay Pratap Singh, Amit Singh, Santosh Kumar, Brushali Singh and Aarti Singh. Four others – Kuldeep Singh, Priyanka Kashyap, Shalu Vishwakarma and Anchal Sharma – were caught operating out of a commercial unit in Sarojini Nagar under the name Sky Net Enterprises,” the police stated in a release.
The police said two more suspects, Sandeep Singh and Santosh, were absconding and efforts were on to trace them. “FIRs have been registered under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and the Information Technology Act, and forensic analysis of the seized gadgets is in progress,” said police.
The DCP said the callers at the centre were hired on a salary of ₹8000 to 10000 a month. Fraudsters used to procure candidates’ data from a Noida-based portal for ₹15,000 a month and made calls after shortlisting 100 CVs daily. Callers used to take money in the name of job and police verification. After this, they used to send fake call letters.
“The gang created an illusion of legitimacy as they even had scripts, call lists, and templates ready. The victims genuinely believed they had landed jobs at major firms,” a senior officer from the surveillance cell said.
