Four men were arrested early on Wednesday for allegedly running a ‘placement agency’ that they used to dupe young men and women by promising them jobs in the city as well as abroad.
The police identified the ‘placement agency’ as Ghosh Brothers Lemart that the four men operated from a small rented office space in Dum Dum near the airport.
The four were identified as Hiranmoy Das, Surajit Pradhan, Jagannath Karmakar and Biswajit Ghosh.
A senior officer of Bidhannagar commissionerate said that they had received a complaint from a job aspirant, who had lost more than Rs 20,000 recently. Based on the complaint, the officers of Airport police station began a probe and found that the group had duped several job seekers.
“The men would call up their prospective targets after getting in touch with them on social media sites. They used to market themselves as a placement agency,” said the officer.
Once a person agreed to share his or her number over a social media website messaging service, they would tell the person that he or she needed to complete an “online certification programme best suited to his or her profile to bag a good job”, he added.
They would send in their account number and links to mobile wallets and ask the person to transfer the “fees for the online course” Once the job aspirant made the payment, they would severall communications.
“They would keep changing their numbers to avoid getting tracked down by their victims or authorities.”
