A fake work-experience certificate racket, which helped jobseekers secure lucrative employment in IT companies, has been unearthed by the Central Crime Branch here.
The CCB conducted simultaneous raids on seven companies since Monday and arrested 26 persons, including a woman. The police suspect that at least 25,000 candidates may have secured employment through these companies.
Besides fake work-experience certificates, the sleuths stumbled upon fabricated credentials such as Form 16, identity cards, access cards and other documents. Also, a person had been hired to provide “positive feedback” about the candidate when companies made telephone inquiries.
The CCB raids, which continued on Tuesday, was following an e-mail tip-off to Police Commissioner M.N. Reddi last week, following which a CCB constable was sent as a decoy to Tanangi Infomatics Consultancy Services on Jayanagar 9th Block.
The kingpins of the racket have been identified as Kiran Kumar (35), Rangaraju (35), Sheikh Altaj Ahmed (39) and Balraj (39), who charged anywhere between Rs. 15,000 and Rs. 30,000 for each certificate and had been operating for the past three years.
Mr. Reddi said, “The companies were registered with Registrar of Companies, but were not functioning. In some cases, fake educational qualifications were created for candidates to get better jobs in reputed companies across the country. These companies maintained records on candidates and documents issued to them.”
Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Hemanth Nimbalkar said all the seven companies had a common premise, which functioned as a call centre with several fixed phone lines. A full-fledged staff attended to calls from prospective employers, who often wanted to know the background of the candidates.
Interestingly, even as CCB officials were investigating on a premise, an unemployed graduate from Madhya Pradesh walked in seeking experience certificate, he said.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Abhishek Goyal said the companies included Cionix India Pvt. Ltd., Infer Software Solutions and Progenex Infomatics in BTM Layout, Tarangi Infomatic Consultancy Service and E-Beam in Jayanagar, and Solvent Toptech India Pvt. Ltd. in J.P. Nagar.
SeizedHe said seals, identity cards, letterheads computers, communication equipment, printers, scanners and laptops were seized.
