Andhra Pradesh: Thousands of youth fall victim to job scam

VISAKHAPATNAM: A major problem facing the police in north Andhra right now is the problem of imposters posing as government officials and duping people by promising favours. Although the police have caught some such fraudsters, people are being cheated by such imposters every day. The major policing issue is that these fraudsters keep shifting base, making them extremely difficult to locate.
Recently, the city task force police arrested a person named G Anil Kumar. Kumar had allegedly posed as additional collector-3 of Visakhapatnam district and had collected over Rs 10 lakh from people promising to solve their land disputes. Preliminary investigation has revealed that Kumar, a resident of Srikakulam, had also committed some white-collar offences in Srikakulam district.

Speaking to TOI, ACP (task force) A Trinad Rao said that the frauds committed by such imposters come to light only when the people cheated on lodge a police complaint. “As a result, the imposters have enough time to flee. Ironically, it is the educated youngsters who are falling into their trap,” he added.
More than 2,100 cases of cheating and white-collar offences were reported in the city between 2017 and 2019. However, most of the accused in such cases remain at large as police have failed to find clues to follow up on the accused.
DCP (law and order) S Ranga Reddy related the incident of a 42-year-old Srinivas who would pose as the assistant general manager of a company. Srinivas had allegedly cheated more than 20 youngsters having taken around Rs 60 lakh from them upon promising employment in government departments and private firms. “Recovery of siphoned off money is difficult as these fraudsters usually spend all the money,” he added.
Some police officials also find fault with those who fall victim to such frauds by paying money without conducting sufficient background checks in the hope of securing employment through unscrupulous means. They say that not only intermediate and polytechnic diplomas, graduates and post graduates in engineering and business administration also fall victim to such frauds.
CPI(M) leader K Lokanatham said that people from north Andhra are easy victims to such fraud. “We have been requesting the police to create awareness about such imposters, fake agents and institutions and to set up a job fraud cell to deal with such cases. However, our requests have fallen on deaf ears,” he said.