After being on the run for close to 11 months, a man wanted in a job fraud case, has been arrested by the Economic Offence Wing (EOW), Unit II, of the Navi Mumbai Crime Branch.
The arrested man, Ganesh Tarafe (33), is a resident of Nere village in Panvel taluka. His accomplice, Dashrath Gajare (40), also from Nere, was arrested earlier, while a third accused is still at large.
According to the police, the three of them allegedly cheated more than 20 job seekers of ₹8.28 lakh with the false promise of jobs in Dubai. They had set up an office of an overseas job recruitment company called Sealand Offshore Contractor in Koproli village of Panvel taluka.
The fraud was reported in September 2018 by one of their victims, Anis Dilfas, who was allegedly cheated of ₹1.5 lakh. Mr. Dilfas, a resident of Kerala, was promised a job in Dubai in a company named Eagle Rock Drilling.
“Most of the victims in the case were from Kerala who had come here after seeing an advertisement put up by the accused on the internet,” senior police inspector Vijay Deshmukh from EOW, Unit II, said.
Mr. Gajare was a civil contractor who started this set-up to make a quick buck. Mr. Tarafe, a friend of his, joined him later. The victims were made to pay in the range of ₹50,000 to ₹1.5 lakh depending on the job they were promised.
“As of now, we know of 20 victims. We had anticipated that the fraud amount might cross ₹1 crore and hence the case was transferred to our unit. But it has not gone beyond ₹8.28 lakh,” Mr. Waghmare said.