Unemployed youth lured by job promises and duped of Rs 3 crore

Around 50 unemployed youth from the city were duped of nearly Rs 3 crore by an imposter who claimed to be running a recruitment firm called 'Fly Sparrow Job Consultants'.
The fraud came to light only after a duped youth lodged a complaint with the III-Town police station in the city today afternoon.
According to police and victims, Santhosh Siva from Kerala and Sai Sridhar from Chennai ran the outfit from a shop at Rama Talkies Road since two months.
The duo employed a few people to give the office a corporate look and attracted a good number of unemployed youth by promising them jobs in Australia, Singapore and Brunei.

They informed their employees around a week ago that they were going to Hyderabad and Chennai to process visas and after that there was been no communication from them.
Suspecting foul play, victims lodged a police complaint accusing the duo of cheating them with the promise of jobs abroad.

III-Town police station inspector S Appala Raju said that the duo promised jobs abroad for which they charged Rs 5,000 to process applications and for Australia, their fee was Rs 1.6 lakh.
He said that as many as 47 youth approached the police and lodged a complaint against the duo.
Police sources said that the duo fled the city after collecting around Rs 3 crore from gullible youth.

Though the police did not spell out the exact number of victims cheated, it suspects that the number of victims is around 100.
Raju said that a case against the duo under Section 420 of Indian Penal Code has been registered and an investigation is on.