Fake foreign job offers: Two held in Noida, 104 passports seized

Noida: With the arrest of two men, the Noida Police on Friday claimed to have busted a gang of thugs that duped money from people on the pretext of helping them get employment in foreign countries.

The gang has been operational for about six years now and cheated gullible people by assuring them jobs in countries like Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, police said.

The police said they have seized 104 passports and 31 forged visa documents, 36 fake work contracts, among other items, from the possession of the duo, one of whom is a qualified software engineer.

"A team led by ACP 3 (Shavya Goyal) has arrested two accused. During inquiry it has come to light that the gang was making money from people on the pretext of sending them to foreign countries and getting them employment there", Deputy Commissioner of Police (Noida) Vidya Sagar Mishra said.

"They were using forged visa documents, Aadhaar cards, work contracts. 104 passports have been seized from them. These passports belonged to people whom they were duping. An FIR was lodged against them in Delhi in the past and we are gathering more details about it", Mishra told reporters.

Ishaq Yunus alias Robin alias Jitendra (30), and Rohit Oberoi (27) were nabbed near Hoshiarpur on Friday by officials of Sector 49 police station team on the basis of a tip-off, police said.

During interrogation, it was revealed that Jitendra is the leader of the gang and this work was being carried out by him for the last six years, a police spokesperson said.

"This gang misleads youth with job offers in foreign countries like Jordan, Saudi Arabia etc. For this work, the accused takes Rs 80,000- Rs 90,000 from a candidate, and if they find any shortcoming in official papers, they would increase the rate and demand more money from them to fix the issue", the official said.

The gang promoted its fake consultancy firm using various social media platforms and when a victim contacts them after seeing this advertisement, they are told that if they bring more candidates, their charge would be reduced, the official said.

"After this, in the name of getting jobs abroad, they extort money from the unemployed persons by showing them fake visas and company contracts, they are not given jobs anywhere. As soon as the money was collected, they closed the office and would run away", the spokesperson said.

The gang has carried out such incidents in the past in Delhi, Haryana and other parts of Uttar Pradesh also, the police said.

An FIR has been lodged against the accused, who were produced in a local court which has sent them to jail, the police added.