Couples held for conning people in the name of foreign jobs

New Delhi: Two couples were arrested from Punjab's Patiala district for allegedly duping around 200 people of a total of over Rs 60 lakh on the pretext of providing jobs abroad, police said on Saturday.

The accused -- identified as Ishpreet Singh (22), Karan Kumar (28) and Akansha (22), residents of Patiala and Palak Sachdeva (22), a resident of Uttam Nagar in Delhi -- were arrested on Wednesday, they said.

According to police, Akanksha is the wife of Karan and Palak is Singh's girlfriend. Total 148 passports, one car, 13 mobile phones and 35 SIM cards were recovered from possession of the accused, they said.

"On May 19, Vijay, a resident of Sikar in Rajasthan, lodged a case at Janakpuri Police Station in which he alleged that he contacted Black Stone Immigration Services for job on May 17 after seeing an online advertisement," Monika Bhardwaj, Deputy Commissioner of Police (West), said.

The complainant said he came to the company's office at Janakpuri on April 24. There he met one Akanksha who took Rs 14,160 in advance on the pretext of providing him a job in Canada. She claimed that the hiring process was initiated and charged Rs 6,000 more to conduct Vijay's medical check-up. After completing all formalities, the accused demanded Rs 1 lakh from Vijay, who paid them Rs 20,000 in cash and transferred Rs 80,000 to their bank account, a senior police officer said.

The complainant was asked to wait for one month till he got his visa and air ticket, police said. During investigation, police analysed the call details records of the suspected phone numbers, but it surfaced that the numbers were used only for tele-calling and no other clue was available, Bhardwaj said.

However, police were tipped off about the presence of the accused in Punjab. Raids were conducted in several areas of Punjab and the accused were arrested on Wednesday, police said.

During interrogation, the accused disclosed that they used to lure people on the pretext of ensuring foreign work visa and job abroad. After collecting money and passports from many people, they absconded, the DCP said.

The accused admitted that they have duped around 200 people of Rs 60 to 70 lakh. Those duped were from Delhi and many other States including Andhra Pradesh and Kerala, the DCP added. Singh, who has a Diploma in Mechanical Engineering from Patiala College, and one Kaka are the mastermind of the gang.

Singh came to Delhi in 2016 and started working as a consultant. Later, he opened his own office and started duping people, police said. Efforts are on to trace other people who were targeted by the gang, police said, adding they are conducting raids to nab absconding accused Kaka.