Bangalore, Oct 1: They lured job aspirants with fake experience certificates, identity cards and much more ” all to make a fast buck. But the law finally caught up with them. The fraudsters are now cooling their heels in jail.
As many as 26 persons, including a woman, were arrested on Tuesday after police busted the fake certificate racket. Seven premises, from where 25 such companies were functioning, were raided as part of the day-long operation conducted by the Central Crime Branch (CCB). Job seekers had to cough up anything between Rs 3,000 and Rs 30,000 for the documents. Over 25,000 persons got jobs in reputed firms on the basis of the certificates, the cops said.
Police commissioner MN Reddi recently received an email about the existence of such companies. "The firms were registered with the Registrar of Companies (RoC), but were not in operation. They only issued fake experience certificates. They had stocked up numerous identity cards, access cards, copies of Form 16, experience certificates and also fake educational papers. Almost all these companies were being run by graduates, who had preserved copies of the documents they had sold," said Reddi, who was present during the raids.
Joint commissioner of police (crime) Hemanth Nimbalkar said the CCB team stumbled upon several phone lines on the premises. They had been installed to give feedback to prospective employers who would call to know about the candidates' background. "The number of job seekers may well exceed 25,000 as we suspect the racket has a presence across India. We are checking the antecedents of those who were issued the certificates, by verifying the large cache of documents seized," Nimbalkar added.
The certificates were issued in the name of Cionix, E-Beam, Tarangi Infomatic Consultancy Service, etc, said deputy commissioner of police (crime) Abhishek Goyal. "One of the firms was being run from a rented hotel room in Jayanagar IX Block. Four persons were nabbed. Other companies were operating from 100 Feet Road in BTM Stage I, Bank Colony, BTM Phase I, JP Nagar Phase III and JP Nagar Phase VII," he said.
Other than IDs and other documents, high-quality seals and letter heads, computers, communication equipment, printers, scanners and laptops were seized.
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