Two arrested for duping 40 job seekers from Goa
Date of Publishing:4/9/2010
Location:Mumbai
Mumbai: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the city police, with the help of a web hosting company, recently arrested two persons accused of duping several job seekers from Goa to the tune of Rs 20 lakh. The amount is likely to go up, a police officer said, adding that they were now on the lookout for another accused in the case.
The arrested accused have been identified as Pankaj Mistry alias Paresh Bhatia (40) and Shekhar Sharma alias Saifuddin Wajid (40), both school dropouts. The wanted accused has been identified as Sudhanshu Kashyap. "The accused had placed advertisements in a local newspaper, offering jobs as crew members of Singaporean ship," said inspector Ramchandra Lotlikar
"The advertisement stated that a firm, Arpita Trade Link Pvt Ltd, was looking for young boys to work as crew members. The accused asked applicants to mail their resumes to info@arpitatradelink.com and later, called the candidates to their Kandivli office in Mumbai for an interview,’’ said a police officer.
After the interview, the accused asked the victims to deposit Rs 40,000-Rs 60,000 in a bank account,claiming as processing fee. They were also told when their flight would depart from Sahar airport, the officer said. When the victims came to Mumbai, they found that the company’s office was shut.
"The accused had switched off their cellphones. We had no details from which we could trace the accused," said an officer.
The police learnt about Arpita Trade Link’s website and its link with www.mtmmanagement.sg. The EOW then approached the cyber crime cell for help. "We first traced the Internet Protocol address of the server on which the emails were sent. We found out that the website was Indian. The web hosting company informed us that the buyers of Arpita Trade Link’s domain name had also purchased domains and web space for Amardeep Trade Link Pvt Ltd, Blue Ocean, Avdhan Trade Link and Supreme Multi-Trade Company.
"After shutting their Kandivli office, the accused floated Global Services in Rajasthan. A police officer, posing as a job seeker, approached the accused and arrested them. We recovered Rs 2.88 lakh, a laptop, 13 passports, a CD drive and hard disks," said an officer.
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