Fraudsters thrive on Cyprus visa, job racket

Hyderabad: After the US, the UK and Canada, fraudsters are thriving on Cyprus visa and job racket. Job aspirants in the city were falling easy prey to such racketeers.

The cybercrime unit was filled with complaints by victims cheated of around '3 lakh. The fly-by-night operators were found working through fake visa consultants, offering low-level job opportunities for the less qualified aspirants. Once 80 per cent of the money was paid, they would leave the scene.

Cybercrime expert Ram Mohan said, “The job permit emails sent by the false visa consultant will include a website of a non-existent company, bank details of the fraudster, appointment letter and the break-up of fee meant to be paid for visa. In a majority of the cases received, the scamster offers to pay the ticket fare, but insists on the travel and visa fare. Victims fall into the trap when they personally approach such fake consultancy or through random emails received, mostly the less qualified are lured and targeted.”

The central crime station received five cases of fraud job and visa racket connected with Cyprus.

Following the rising number of fraud job offers, the High Commission of India in Nicosia iss-ued a warning. The official announcement said: “From time to time, the High Commission of In-dia in Nicosia has been receiving references fr-om Indian nationals for verification of employment contracts by ‘pros-pective employers/recr-uitment agencies’ in Cy-prus as well as the ‘Entry Permit’ reported to have been issued by the Cypr-us migration authorities.

“In most of the cases, it has been found that the ‘prospective employers/ recruitment agencies’ are non-existent and the ‘Entry Permits’ are not genuine”.

The commission added, “Indian nationals who are contacting the ‘pro-spective employers/recr-uitment agencies’ have been asked to pay certain amounts of money for processing their job applications.  Also, employers are insisting to pay, ‘No Objection Certificate’ from this High Commission before taking up ‘employment’ in Cyprus.

“This is to caution all Indian nationals who ap-ply for and receive ‘Employment Contracts/Job Offers’ from ‘prospective employers/recruitment agencies’ in Cyprus or their agents in India or elsewhere, and ‘Entry Permits’ to get the documents verified from the Government of the Rep-ublic of Cyprus. It may also be noted that the Hi-gh Commission of India, Nicosia, ‘does not issue any No Objection Certif-icate’ for taking up ‘emp-loyment’ in Cyprus”, the statement said.

Victims fall for fake job offers in Cyprus

Boosa Devendar, a 22-year-old private employee and native of Karimnagar, got introd-uced to a person named Arjun aka Harish, running KVS Consultancy Services in Hyderabad.

Arjun offered Deven-dar a job in Cyprus and demanded '6.4 lakh. Devendar initially paid '20,000 and finally the full amount, in cash and through online transfer in 2017.

Arjun gave him a permit and an agreement letter. Later the victim, found out that the permit was fake and on qu-estioning, Arjun admitted his mistake and pr-omised to repay the money.

Towards the end of the year, he paid '3.8 lakh and when he was asked the balance amount, he threatened Devendar. 

It was later found that Arjun had cheated Jag-apathi of Chittoor dist-rict of '3.8 lakh, T. Su-manth of Kothagudem ('1.5 lakh), G. Sai Kiran ('1.8 lakh) and B. Na-resh Kumar Reddy of Mahbubnagar ('2.7 la-kh). The central crime station booked a case against Arjun under Sections 406 (punishm-ent for criminal breach of trust) and 420 (cheating and dishonestly) of the Indian Penal code on January 25.

6 cheated with job offers

On local level too, the fake job racket was rampant. In recent times, six people were cheated by a person who promised to get them jobs in the GHMC.

On January 28, sleuths of Hyderabad police arrested two persons on charges of cheating job aspirants. Victim, Beku Sai Kiran, a 26-year-old private marketing empl-oyee from Jeedimetla was lured by one Rajas-hekar Balaraju who pro-mised him a job in the GHMC Khairatabad circle. The scamster told Beku that certain vacancies were there at the GHMC office. But he would have to spend '3 lakh to secure the job and demanded '50,000 as token amount.

The fraudster also showed the victim a copy of the appointment letter for the job of an accountant. After paying the token amount, the victim was forced to pay the rest after which he received by post an ‘appointment’ letter signed by Deputy Mayor- GHMC and a ‘joining’ letter. But when Beku enquired at the GHMC head office, he found that all the documents received were fake.

On enquiries it was revealed that the fraudster had cheated one P. Kalyan, B. Srinivas Rao and Kranthi of Jeedi-metla, besides Y. Vanitha of Alwal, Govind Reddy, Cherukupally Surender Reddy and many others collecting '50,000 from each of them. The scamster had so far collected '3.15 lakh through such offers.