Gang dupes people with job assurance in airlines, 4 held

Four people were arrested in Greater Noida from a fake call centre that duped people across the country on the pretext of getting them jobs in various airlines, police said on Saturday.

The accused, including the kingpin of the gang, were held during a raid on a tip-off on Friday night at their office on the sixth floor of a corporate building in Sector 142, under the Surajpur police station limits, an official said.

Around Rs 4.50 lakh cash was seized from them and it was found that they were using a bank account for transactions which is in the name of a rickshaw puller, Senior Superintendent of Police, Gautam Buddh Nagar, Vaibhav Krishna said.

"The gang has been operating for around a year now and is understood to have duped over a thousand people by calling them up to offer help in getting them jobs in maintenance department of leading airlines like Indigo, GoAir, Vistara Airlines. Exact details about victims and money involved are being worked out," Krishna told reporters.

Those arrested have been identified as Praveen Mishra, the mastermind, and callers Abhishek Pal, Rishabh Singh and Shantanu Raj and all of them have an adequate understanding of computer softwares, police said.

"The accused told interrogators that they would get details like contact number of job seekers from Shine.com. They would introduce themselves as representative of a US-based consultancy and then ask them to register with them for Rs 2,000, and request them to send bigger amounts in a particular bank account," Krishna said.

"Once they would get the amount in the account, they would quickly withdraw all the money using the ATM to avoid any risk. Also, the bank account used by them belongs to a rickshaw puller and we are finding out that connection also," he added.

During the raid, two laptops, seven keypad mobile phones, related electronic devices and data of job aspirants procured from Shine.com along with Rs 4.40 lakh cash were seized, police said.

An FIR has been registered against the accused at the Surajpur police station and the accused remanded in custody, police added.