Hyderabad: Cops arrest 2 for running illegal manpower agency

Hyderabad: East Zone Task Force team apprehended two persons on Tuesday for running an illegal placement agency called Man Power Consultancy and sending aspirants to Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) on work visa without having valid licence from Protector of Immigrants (PoI). The accused were identified as Syed Jaweed, 29, owner of Ashad Travel Services at Habsiguda Crossroads, and Mohd Tausif, 26. Police seized five passports and two cellphones from their possession.

The two who took huge amounts of money from the aspirants were friends and partners in crime. “The two were friends and were from same locality. Syed Jaweed worked in a call centre till 2015.  In 2016, Syed Jaweed worked with one Arif Khan, who is the owner of Ashad Travel Services located at Vidya Nagar and learned the entire procedure of sending clients abroad. Later, in the month of July 2016, he collaborated with Tausif and they both decided to send the gullible aspirants to KSA as he knew the entire process,” said the additional DCP, commissioner’s Task Force, C.Shashidhar Raju.

 On interrogation, they confessed that they had collected passports of 42 customers and cash worth '12 lakh. They had not sent anyone to KSA. When the prospective customers complained and asked for their passports, the accused returned some but did not pay the amount back. They also held back a few of the passports. Some of the victims then approached the police. Based on the complaint of one such victim, a case was registered at Habeeb Nagar Police station.

 Based on a tip off, the East Zone team apprehended both the accused, seized incriminating material and handed them over to Habeebnagar police.