The Mumbai Police Crime Branch has arrested two accused who have allegedly cheated job seekers from four States by taking large amounts of money from them with the promise of well paying jobs in Gulf countries. The Crime Branch has confirmed information on at least 47 victims so far.
According to officers, Akram Sheikh (47) and Shabir Master (52) were arrested after some of the victims approached the Crime Branch Unit I, which initiated inquiries into the matter.
“We visited the office near the Masjid railway station, where the accused were operating out of, to verify the complaint and then sent a decoy customer to meet the duo. We found out that the accused would mostly deal with people from lower-income groups who were not very educated, and pretend to offer them jobs with low education qualification requirements, like driving, in Gulf countries. The deal would be closed at ₹70,000 to ₹75,000 and the victims would be required to submit their passports,” a Unit I officer said.
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After taking the money from their victims, the accused would scan their passports and paste fake Visa entries from Gulf countries, an image of which would be sent to the victims as proof of their employment. The accused would then convince the victims to pay additional amounts under the pretext of various processing fees, fleecing them of every penny that they could spare.
“Every time the victims visited the accused to ask about their jobs, the accused would make some excuse or the other and also try to get more money out of them. In case any of the victims got too aggressive, they would return part of their money, which would comparatively be a small amount, to pacify them,” the officer said.
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Finally, a group of five friends, who had all paid the accused, realised that they were being taken for a ride and approached the police. After verifying all the information in their complaint, the Crime Branch raided the office and arrested the two accused on Monday.
“Both the accused have been passport agents for several years and we suspect this is how they got the idea. They have both been working together for the last six months. After our raid, some more of their victims came to us and recorded their statements, taking the total number of verified victims to 17. Apart from them, we have also found scanned copies of the passports of 30 others, who are being contacted,” the officer said.
The duo have been charged with cheating and forgery under the Indian Penal Code along with sections of the Immigration Act. The accused were produced in court on Tuesday and have been remanded in police custody till November 18, officers said.