The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Odisha Crime Branch has arrested one more accused allegedly involved in a major inter-state job scam. The accused, identified as Akashpu Veera Chaitanya, was arrested from Andhra Pradesh yesterday and was produced before a designated court in Cuttack on Monday.
As per EOW, the accused along with the mastermind of the racket Md. Sanaullah, Sakshi Jain of Hyderabad, Surath Dalai of Balasore and others floated fake advertisements on a fake website and in the local dailies of different States, including Odisha. In the name of application fee for the jobs, they collected Rs 1000 per candidate and cheated the job aspirants across the nation to the tune of crores of rupees.
As found, an amount of Rs 60 lakh from the cheated amount has landed in the account of the arrested accused Chaitanya. The inter-state job racket was being run from Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad but was operating in at least 6 States - Odisha, Jammu & Kashmir, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
Probe Findings
Advertisements were published by creating a fraud organisation “Aided Schools welfare Society” and applications were invited from eligible candidates for Non-teaching posts in Aided Schools in Odisha for different posts like Development Officer, Welfare Officer, School Supervisor, School Clerks, School Attenders and watchmen with specific eligibility and remuneration and vacancies.
The last date of online Application for the above posts was 10.01.2024 and a salary ranging from Rs.28,000 to Rs.40,000 per month was offered.
During the investigation, it was found that scammers used various mule bank accounts to collect the fees so that they could mislead police/ law enforcement agencies. Transactions of more than Rs 1.7 crore were noticed in these bank accounts. Most of the money was withdrawn in cash through ATMs to leave no financial trail.