Navi Mumbai: Promising job in Kuwait, agent flees with passport, money of several aspirants

The Nerul-based agent and his five associates asked the people to fork out the cash and submit their passports to get a job in a multinational company

A travel agent and his five accomplices in Nerul made away with cash and passports of several aspirants who had fallen for their fraudulent scheme of getting them jobs in Kuwait. The agency had asked people to fork out money and submit their passports for ‘verification’ purposes, as part of the procedure in ‘applying’ to a multinational company.

The accused have been identified by only their first names Shabir, Shakil, Shaheen, Wasim, Izail, and Bilal from Global Tours and Travels in Sector 23 of Seawoods, Nerul. Shabir is the main accused in the case. The agency promised the aspirants, who were mostly from lower income families, a job in Kharafi National, a Kuwait-based multinational organisation.

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On the pretext of providing them with a “great opportunity”, they asked people to pay up the “charges”. Akhtar Ali, one of the applicants who hails from Mahim, said, “I got in touch with the agency through one of my friends in December 2014. The people at the agency asked me to pay R20,000 to apply for a job in Kuwait.

After I made the payment, they told me to come after a month for verification. However, when I visited their office on January 6, the agency had shut down.” Ali further said a large number of people had applied for the job - nearly hundred, as per his estimates, going by the number of people who had come to the office on the day for ‘verification’.

Ali, and a few others had even received a fake ‘allotment letter’. All of them had handed over their passports to the agency. Another applicant, Abdur Rehman, added, “In the name of verification, the accused took our passports and other documents along with cash; I gave him Rs 38,000.

Many people have been conned. I, along with 50 others, have lodged a complaint at Nerul police station.” Arjun Gaikwad, assistant police inspector at Nerul police station, said, “We have registered a case on January 20 under Section 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code. We are currently investigating.”

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