Fake railway recruitment racket that swindled Rs 22 crore busted in Mysuru, two arrested

MYSURU: In a major catch, the Railway Protection Force, Mysuru, has busted a fake railway recruitment racket and arrested two persons. A preliminary estimate has revealed that the accused had defrauded over 400 job aspirants of more than Rs 22 crore.

The accused were identified as Chandra Gowda S Patil, 44, a resident of Mysuru, and Shivaswamy, 62, a retired railway employee and native of Gadag. Following complaints from the Chief Medical Superintendent of Mysuru about the movement of several suspicious-looking persons taking photographs on the premises of the Railway Hospital and behaving dubiously, RPF sleuths under the guidance of Thomas John, Divisional Security Commissioner (DSC), and A Sridhar, Assistant Security Commissioner, RPF, Mysuru were pressed into action to keep watch on the activities of these people.

Close surveillance on the activities of this gang confirmed that they were running a fake recruitment racket luring young job aspirants with the promise of lucrative railway jobs.

The gang ran an operational centre in and around a house opposite Shiva Shakthi Kalyana Mantapa, near Highway Circle in the city, targeting mainly poor and gullible village boys.

They collected original educational certificates of candidates and issued fake call letters, medical memos and appointment orders. The gang extracted large sums of money from the job aspirants, according to senior RPF officers. An official said they would take several lakhs of rupees from each candidate and as per a conservative estimate, around 400 candidates got cheated for a total sum of Rs 22 crores. 

“Many had given money by selling their land and taking loans at heavy interest rates,” revealed the official.

A total of 221 blank signed cheque leaves, cash amounting to Rs 4.15 lakh, original documents of aspiring candidates, cheque books, about 100 fake railway appointment orders, 70 fake nameplates of TTEs, a laptop and a computer were seized from the duo.

The accused, along with the seized materials, were handed over to the Inspector, Mandi police station for initiating the necessary legal process and an FIR was registered at Mandi police station.  

Rahul Agarwal, Divisional Railway Manager, South Western Railway, Mysuru Division, appealed to aspiring candidates to visit official websites of Railway Recruitment Boards (RRBs) only for any notice or information regarding railway recruitment.

“Any information or notices being circulated on social media regarding RRBs or offers being made by individuals for monetary consideration should be straightaway ignored,” he said.