Mumbai Cyber Cell busts international job racket; accused cheated over 2,000 people in 8 months

The four African nationals have been arrested from Pune’s Undri area

The Cyber Cell of the Mumbai Crime Branch has busted yet another international job racket and arrested four African nationals, who were operating from Pune's Undri area. Investigation has revealed that the gang has been operating in 48 countries and it has cheated more than 2,000 people over the past eight months. The Cyber Cell suspects the number to be more as the gang has been running the racket for over two years now and as part of its modus operandi, the accused would destroy their computer hard disks every five to six months. The cops have recovered data related to 27,000 people from the laptops they have seized from the accused for further investigation.

Cheated of lakhs
According to the Cyber Cell, the scam came to the fore after a 30-year-old hotel management professional approached them. "The complainant was looking for a job in the hotel management industry abroad and had been checking several websites related to it," said Milind Bharambe, joint commissioner of police, Crime Branch.

"While searching for a job he got a pop-up message on his laptop about a vacancy for the manager's post at Hotel and Suite Canada from careershiltonhotelincanada@workmail.com. After he wrote an email to the person concerned, he got a response with an offer letter from the hotel. They shared the number of a diplomat Mark Brown and asked him to contact the person for further details," Bharambe added.

"After he contacted the diplomat, he was asked to pay visa fee, programme fee, employment authorisation fee, basic travel allowance and other certification fees. The victim transferred R17,22,800 to different Indian bank accounts," Bharambe further said.

The gang later asked the victim to pay more for an RBI certificate, which is when he got suspicious. On contacting the RBI, he got to know that no such certification was provided by them. "After speaking to the RBI officials he realised that he has been cheated. That is when he approached the Cyber Cell. After a thorough investigation we arrested the four African nationals from Pune," Bharambe said.

The arrested accused have been identified as Michael Olayeni, 32, Sotomiwa Thompson, 25, Opeyemi Oadele Ogunmoroti, 26, and August Francis Williams, 22. The Crime Branch has found out that all of them came to India on student visas.

Data of 27K people found
"So far our investigation has revealed that they cheated more than 2,000 people across the globe in just eight months and they have been operating from Pune for over two years. We have recovered data of 27,000 people from 48 countries from their laptops. We have also found passport details of 2,500 individuals, which the gang procured," Bharambe added. "They have destroyed several hard disks which definitely had more data about people who have been cheated," said Rashmi Karandikar, DCP, Cyber Cell.

The gang was operating in Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Burundi, Cameroon, Chile, Colombia, France, Ghana, Congo, Egypt, Greece, Ethiopia, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Jamaica, Jordon, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Lebanon, Malawi, Mexico, Morocco, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Zambia, and Albania.

The cops have also seized 14 mobile phones, four laptops, sim cards and pen-drives. "The details retrieved from the laptops also suggest that the accused were using 64 bank accounts of 12 Indian banks. The accounts also include two foreign ones in Nigeria and Dubai," Bharambe said. So far the cops have found transaction details of a total of Rs 12 crore.

"Cases of online job frauds are increasing day by day and. Netizens fall prey to job fraud, OLX fraud, visa fraud, OTP fraud and hacking done by cyber syndicate operated by mostly Nigerians living in India or abroad. Maharashtra government and Mumbai Cyber have taken steps to nab the criminals through state of art technology and community collaboration," said Smith Gonsalves, cyber expert and director of CyberSmithSECURE, a company that specialises in tackling cyber attacks.

CB advisory - how to avoid job frauds
>> Find out about the company to know that it's authentic.
>> Always use keywords like fake, fraud and scam after the company name while looking up the Internet to ensure that it's not involved in any such activities.
>> Report cyber crime incidents at cybercrime.gov.in
>> No real company will hire without a face-to-face interaction.
>> Always try to analyse the company email by visiting their respective website and cross- check it as well.
>> An email or telephone interview is always the sign of a scam.
>> No real company charges money for a job, visa or work permit.
>> Be cautious while dealing with individuals outside of your own country.