Noida: Two held for conning unemployed men of money after promising them aviation jobs

Two men have been arrested by Noida police for allegedly cheating unemployed youth in Noida on the pretext of providing them jobs with an aviation firm and luring them to enrol in an aviation course, ultimately duping them of several lakhs of rupees, senior police officers said on Monday.

According to Awadhesh Pratap Singh, station house officer, Sector 63 police station, the suspects have been carrying out the fraud since 2021 from their office in Block H of Sector 63.

“The suspects, identified as Bhagwanta Singh (31), a native of Deeg, Rajasthan, and resident of Sector 3, Greater Noida west; and Harsh Parihar (21), a resident of Patel Nagar, Delhi, would advertise on social media about “guaranteed jobs” in the aviation sector. Once a person applied for it, the suspects would call them and tell them that they have been selected, and will be paid a monthly salary of ₹40,000 along with accommodation, food, medical coverage, provident fund, travel expenses, etc. by the company and that the job will be ‘semi-government’,” said Singh, adding that the suspects ensured that their targets were from far off cities such as Agra and states such as Agra, Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Haryana.

“To convince the unemployed, the suspects used to send fake offer letters on e-mail in which a certificate of aviation course was demanded. After getting the offer letter, the victim would believe that they got the job, but would express their inability to produce an aviation certificate. On this, the suspects used to trap them by telling that they have collaborated with an aviation training institute which provides a three-month course on aviation and a certificate. On the pretext of this course, the suspects would take ₹50,000 from each victim,” said the officer, adding that the victims were then made to attend an online training course.

“This training did not have anything to do with aviation and included a hospitality course. After taking the certificate after three months, the applicant would be made to take an “interview”, in which they would be failed. If any victim somehow passed the interview, he was made to make calls to trap other unemployed people in the name of training, without paying any salary. When the victim exhausted all his money, he himself would leave the company. If anyone protested, demanding a job in aviation and salary, he was sent a legal notice, demanding ₹5 lakh from them for causing damage to the company,” said the SHO.

The police got to know about the fraud a week ago when a victim submitted a complaint in the matter to the Sector 63 police station.

“We found out that 19 more such candidates have submitted similar complaints at the police station against the company. These candidates are from other states and cities. It is suspected that the suspects have duped hundreds of aspirants in a similar manner, defrauding each of them of at least ₹50,000,” said the officer.

“The suspects Singh, is the director of the company while Parihar made the calls to candidates. They were arrested from their office building on Sunday. A third person identified as Shweta Mishra, who is the CEO of the company, is absconding and police teams are deployed to arrest her. An amount of ₹7.5 lakh in the suspects’ account has been seized,” said the SHO.

The suspects have been booked under charges of cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy of the Indian Penal Code. “The suspects were produced before the local court and sent to judicial custody on Monday,” said Singh.