PremiumEconomic Offences Wing (EOW) of Odisha Police said that they arrested an IT expert from Madhya Pradesh, accused of involvement in what is said to be the "biggest job fraud racket" in the country, news agency ANI has reported.
Arpit Panchal, is a resident of Jaora in Madhya Pradesh's Ratlam, was an IT expert and had developed nine websites, used to entice youths for government jobs and duped hefty sums.
While speaking to ANI, EOW Inspector General Jaya Narayan Pankaj said, “EOW busted the country's biggest job fraud racket in the last week of 2022, which was being operated by some engineers from Aligarh. In this case, we've arrested an engineer Arpit Panchal from MP's Ratlam. He developed 9 websites which looked like govt websites."
He further added that various govt jobs were advertised on these fake websites made by Panchal.
"Around 22,000 job seekers have been duped by this racket. Further investigation is underway, he said.
According to the police, the victims or the job seeker youths were from Odisha and Gujarat. The police are investigating victims from other states like Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Karnataka.
Notably, Arpit Panchal was later produced before the Sub-Divisional Judicial Magistrate Court, Bhubaneswar to seek transit remand of the accused, ANI reported.
The police's investigation into this matter is underway.
Earlier, on 1 January, EOW of Odisha Police said it unearthed a huge job fraud scam being run from Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh. The scammers targeted the unemployed youth in at least five states - Gujarat, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Odisha.
According to Odisha Police, EOW arrested one of the primary accused namely Zafar Ahmed (25) a resident of Civil lines, Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh in connection with the case.
(With inputs from ANI)