Bhubaneswar, April 25: The Central Bureau of Investigation here has busted an interstate job racket. The arrested racketeers had opened a website that looked similar to the railway recruitment cell website to lure job aspirants.

The CBI yesterday arrested a woman from Ranchi in connection with the racket which duped people by promising them jobs in the railways. The CBI officials found that the duplicate website — www.rrcresults.com — was linked to a server in Bhubaneswar.

Sources said the woman, along with her son and his friend, who happens to be an MBBS student, had duped more than 100 youths. Her son and his friend are absconding.

The woman has been identified as Pilla Venkat Satyawati, a group-C railway employee who has been taken on transit remand after being produced in the court of the chief judicial magistrate, Ranchi. “We will produce her at the CBI court here tomorrow and take her on remand to learn more about the scam,” said A.K. Mishra, the officer investigating the racket.

CBI officials said that Satyawati, who is in her forties, was arrested from her Badri Narayan Gali rented accommodation on Ratu road in Ranchi. The accused, who got railway job after her husband died one year ago, was stationed at Hatia station.

A native of Vishakhapatnam, Satyawati was staying in a rented house in Ranchi instead of the government accommodation, which was in her name, so that she could operate the racket smoothly.

The officials said Ratnesh Kumar, an MBBS first-year student at Rajendra Institute of Medical Science (RIMS) in Ranchi, was the mastermind of the racket. Kumar is absconding.

CBI sources said the woman told them that several railway employees were also involved in the scam. She said she used to pay them after keeping her share of the spoils. “Though we do not believe in what she says, some instances do point to the involvement of many people. It is not easy for these people to run the racket without the help of other railway employees. The matter will be clear after further investigation,” said a CBI officer.

Sources said Kumar, Satyawati and her son, Pilla Indra Pawan, had floated a placement agency called PSR Solutions, which was later named Le Soleil, at Tharpakhna in Ranchi. Pawan was the managing director of the agency while Satyawati was the director.

Kumar, who has been in his first year of MBBS for the last five years at RIMS, was conducting medical tests for their victims using his connections at different railway hospitals in Bihar and Jharkhand.

The agency offered youths, mostly students from Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand and Bengal, jobs in railway. The aspirants had been told they would be recruited under special quotas such as ministerial quotas, and so they would not have to take any written test or interview.

“The victims had paid between Rs 4 lakh to Rs 10 lakh. Following the payment and the medical examinations, the fraudsters would put the names of these candidates on the website to garner their faith,” said the officer.