A complaint filed by a Puducherry resident has led to the discovery of a major nationwide cyber fraud racket. Four men, who were allegedly behind the scam, were recently arrested by the Puducherry Cyber Crime Police in Bengaluru.
The victim, Ramesh Kumar from Laspettai in Puducherry, was lured by a fraudulent online job offer promising employment in Canada. The scammer convinced him to make a series of payments totaling Rs 17,71,000 for processing his supposed employment documents and visa. Realizing that he had been scammed, Ramesh filed a complaint with the Puducherry Cyber Crime Police, who subsequently launched an investigation.
The investigation revealed that a gang of four North Indian men, posing as LPG cylinder delivery agents, were operating the scam from Bengaluru. The police team, led by Cyber Crime Inspector Keerthi, tracked down the suspects and arrested them in Bengaluru. The arrested men were identified as Subham Sharma (29) and Niraj Surjar (29) from Madhya Pradesh, and Raj (28) from Uttarakhand.
Further investigation into the gang’s operations revealed that they had defrauded over 3,400 job seekers across several states, including Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, and Karnataka. The gang had swindled a staggering Rs 200 crore from the victims, many of whom had been tricked into believing they were securing legitimate jobs abroad.
Authorities found evidence of the scam on the suspects’ seized laptops and mobile phones, which revealed details of the fraudulent transactions. In addition to the initial victims, further analysis showed that around 360 more individuals had fallen victim to the same scam.
Puducherry Cyber Crime officials are now compiling a comprehensive list of the victims across different states, which will be forwarded to the respective local police forces for further action.
The arrests have exposed a large-scale fraud, and the police are continuing their investigation to identify any other individuals involved in the racket.