BTech and MBA graduates held for cheating over 100 people in Delhi on pretext of jobs

NEW DELHI: Two well-educated people were arrested for allegedly duping over 100 people by posing as representatives of a renowned job portal, police said today.

The accused, Chetan Soni and Naina Singhal, both aged 27, were arrested from Ghaziabad on July 30, they added. Soni is a double MBA while Singhal has a BTech degree.

The legal head of Info Edge (India) Limited, flagship company of Naukri.com filed a complaint that some people were being cheated by using their name, said Deputy Commissioner of Police (Southeast) Chinmoy Biswal.

He said that in order to protect their own reputation and to compensate the unemployed job seeker, they had to pay money to the victim to compensate for their monetary loss.

He had cited a recent case wherein one person was approached through email from career@first-naukri.com, identical to firstnaukri.com, one of the brand names of the complainant company.

The victim was asked to transfer Rs 4,650 in the account of FirstNaukri.Com but later that amount was transferred by the accused to some other account.

A case was registered at Kalkaji police station and the investigation was taken up the district cyber cell unit of the southeast district, the police said. During the investigation, it was found that the accused were stationed in Indirapuram, Ghaziabad.

The bank account details in which the transactions took place were also verified but were found fake. They were in the name of one Manish Kumar. The police team also procured a photo of Manish Kumar from the bank account opening form, they added.

A raid was conducted at a house Vasundhra, Ghaziabad on July 30 where Singhal and Soni were found.

Initially, they contended that they were self-employed and running their legitimate business from their house itself to earn their livelihood.

However, when Soni was questioned about why his photograph was in the fake documents furnished for opening the account, he confessed to duping people, the DCP said.

During interrogation, the accused revealed that they used to work together in 2016 in a consultant firm in Greater Noida.

During that period, they became friends and in order to earn quick money, they planned to cheat people. After working in the firm for six months they quit, he added.

After that, they opened a firm in the name of M/s Strobe Group and registered themselves as a recruiter with Naukri.com.

The name of firm M/s Strobe Group used by accused persons is similar to an MNC in the USA. After that, both the accused purchased a domain name First-naukri.com and Unileverindia.com, which are also similar to original domain names of Naukri.Com and Hindustan Unilever. The leads of the genuine job seekers were received by the accused persons from Naukri.com as they had registered themselves with them as a recruiter, said the DCP.

Later, the accused used to approach job seekers through their fake domain name first-naukri.com to make the victim believe that this lead had come from Naukri.com against their application.

Thereafter, they were offered employment with the fake jobs letters using the almost same domain name as that of the employer's company.

They induce the victims to pay some amount (Rs 4650 to Rs 5450) on different pretexts like security, registration or other expenses, he added.

The accused prepared forged IDs and on the basis of the forged documents, they opened fake bank accounts.

These accounts were used to collect cheated money from job seekers, he added.

Soni completed schooling from Unnao (UP), BBA from Lucknow University and MBA in 2013 from Gautam Budh Technical University in HR and Marketing and another MBA in 2014 from IGNOU in Tourism. Singhal did her B Tech in Computer Science from Lord Krishna College, Ghaziabad.