Ernakulam Rural police have busted a fake job racket, which allegedly duped a woman medical doctor at Piravom by offering her a job at a French hospital, and arrested four persons including a Ghana national in this connection.
The arrested have been identified as Jnanshekhar, a native of Karnataka, Prakash Raj and Hareesh of Andhra Pradesh, and Elol Derek, a Ghana national. Acting on a tip-off, a police team arrested the accused from a hideout in Bengaluru.
As per the case, the accused collected ₹11.5 lakh from the victim by offering her a job at Holy Aasim Multi Speciality Hospital in France. “The trap was laid by advertising vacancies at the hospital on an online job portal. After seeing the ad, the victim contacted them. She transferred ₹11.5 lakh to their bank account in several instalments,” said an official.
The victim, who currently works in Mumbai, was also given a forged French visa and a ‘gate pass’ to the French embassy. To gain her confidence, women tele-callers in the guise of hospital staff used to call her up frequently.
The fraud came to light when the victim approached the French embassy in New Delhi by producing a ‘gate pass’ forged by the racket. Following this, a complaint was lodged with the Piravom police.
The police traced the accused by tracking their mobile phones, and busted their hideout in Bengaluru. The police also seized three laptops and nine mobile phones from their possession, in addition to 26 ATM cards and 10 cheque books.
“Though job rackets usually target unskilled workers and people with minimum education, the fraudsters here did a background work to cheat well-educated people and that too through a famous online job portal. A special team has been formed to probe similar frauds, if any, carried out by the racket,” said Rahul.R. Nair, Superintendent of Police, Ernakulam Rural.
Preliminary investigations revealed that the Ghana national was illegally staying in the country . He established the racket by coordinating conmen from different States in South India. A probe is also on whether any criminal cases were pending against him.
