The city police arrested a 42-year-old man for allegedly duping 21 persons and collecting money in the guise of offering jobs in his firm on Saturday.
Assistant Commissioner of Police (North) Sk. Shariffuddin told presspersons that Panchagam Dattatreya, a former temple priest, put advertisements on OLX and a local channel to recruit data entry operators and land surveyors for his fake firm “Aravind Fasttech Pvt Ltd” run from a room near Paipula Road.
As 21 persons responded to the recruitment call, he made two of them as managers and collected ₹10,000 from each of them as an entry fee for a job with a monthly pay of ₹12,000 to ₹20,000, Mr. Shariffuddin said.
The “managers” Siva Shankar and Nagaraj, who were supposed to conduct interviews for the rest of the jobseekers, realised that they were cheated when they found that the rented office room was vacated by Dattatreya. They approached the Ajith Singh Nagar police on October 6 and lodged a complaint, he said.
The police who were investigating the case found the accused Dattatreya had posted similar advertisements on OLX for recruitment in Rajahmundry and Guntur. He was traced and caught using his mobile phone signals.
The police recovered ₹60,000 from the accused. It was also found that Dattatreya allegedly duped people in Ajith Singh Nagar police station limits in the name of lottery earlier.
He was booked under Section 420 of IPC and Section 66D of IT Act and was produced before a court that sent him in judicial remand.