Bhubaneswar, Jan 10: The Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of Odisha police busted interstate job scam and arrested three people in this connection from Bhubaneswar on Wednesday.

The accused were identified as Mohammad Sanaullah, his wife Sakshi Jain, hailing from Hyderabad and their local agent Surat Dalai, resident of Balasore.

The fraudsters were camping in Odisha since last few months and had been living in an Airbnb rented accommodation.

Sources claimed that the arrested couple are highly educated and very close to the mastermind of the accused based in New Delhi.

The racket, which was being run from Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad was operating in at least six states including Odisha, Jammu & Kashmir, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Assam.

The trio has been arrested in connection with a case registered suo motu by EOW after it came across a suspicious job related advertisement published in a reputed vernacular newspaper on December 18 and 22 last year.

The accused defrauded persons by publishing a fake advertisement in the popular local daily in the name of an organisation, 'Aided Schools welfare Society' (Educational Organisation Supported by Govt).

"Applications from job aspirants have been sought through the advertisements for non-teaching posts in Aided Schools in Odisha such as Development Officer, Welfare Officer, School Supervisor, School Clerks, School Attenders and watchmen. The fake advertisements also mentioned specific eligibility requirements, remuneration and vacancies against the respective posts," said a senior EOW official.

The advertisements contained specific criteria and requirements like reservation, age relaxation etc as featured in job applications for any government and public sector companies.

The last date of online application for the above posts was January 10 while the salary offered was from Rs 28,000 to Rs 40, 000 per month. The sham agency has also been running a website, www.modelschools.ac.

The website and advertisement were designed so as to resemble the Government website for misleading and duping the unemployed youth. The job aspirants were misled to believe that the website of the fake agency was a bonafide Government website.

The accused used to collect Rs 1000 as application fee from each candidate and were reportedly planning to fleece the candidates by charging heavy amounts as Interview fee, security fee, verification fee.

The accused have been using various mule accounts and fake SIMs to avoid getting caught by any security agencies. They were running several YouTube channels to promote their scheme and the job advertisements especially targeting government job aspirants.

"So far, transactions of more than Rs 1.7 crore have been noticed in these bank accounts. Most of the money is withdrawn in cash through ATMs to leave no financial trail. So far, we have mainly probed the Odisha aspect of this scam. We will be alerting the police and law enforcement agencies of other concerned states," said the EOW official.

(IANS)

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