The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday conducted searches across multiple states in connection with a fake government job racket that allegedly cheated aspirants by issuing bogus appointment letters of various departments.

Sources said the searches were carried out at 15 locations in Calcutta, Bihar’s Muzaffarpur and Motihari, Kerala’s Ernakulam, Pandalam, Adoor and Kodur, Chennai, Gujarat’s Rajkot, and Uttar Pradesh’s Gorakhpur, Prayagraj and Lucknow.

“The racket was being run by an organised gang in the name of Indian Railways, 40 government organisations and departments, including forest, Indian Post, income tax and public works, the Bihar government, the Delhi Development Authority, the Rajasthan secretariat, high courts and others,” said an official.

Officials described the scam as highly structured, with coordinated operations across multiple states, indicating a well-planned network rather than isolated incidents.

Sources said the racket had raised concerns about the vulnerability of government recruitment processes to organised fraud, prompting agencies to review safeguards and verification protocols.

“The gang created fake email accounts that closely resembled official government domains and used them to send out fraudulent appointment and joining letters to unsuspecting candidates. To build credibility and avoid early suspicion, the accused allegedly paid two to three months’ ‘salary’ to some victims who were ‘appointed to posts’ such as railway TTEs, technicians and RPF personnel,” said the agency official.