Odisha Police busts "India's biggest ever" job fraud, arrests mastermind from UP

tech.hindustantimes.com:

Odisha Police busted what is said to be the country's "biggest ever" job fraud and arrested the key accused from Uttar Pradesh. The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Odisha Police said it unearthed a huge job fraud scam being run from Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh. The scammers targeted the unemployed youth in at least five states - Gujarat, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Odisha.

According to Odisha Police, EOW arrested one of the primary accused namely Zafar Ahmed (25) a resident of Civil lines, Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh in connection with the case.

Zafar is an engineer (B.Tech) by profession and one of the masterminds of this scam. He was produced before a local court in Aligarh. The court granted 5 days transit remand. He will be produced before the court at Bhubaneswar.

"We are very thankful to Aligarh Police of Uttar Pradesh for assisting us in arresting the accused. The investigation is still going on to unearth the involvement of others and the huge amount amassed by the fraudsters in this process, said Deputy Inspector General, EOW JN Pankaj.

Police said early estimates suggest at least 50,000 job seekers across the country were duped.

Odisha Police said the duped amount runs in crores. The scam was being run by a group of highly tech-savvy engineers from Uttar Pradesh with the help of some expert website developers. This core group was assisted by around 50 call center employees. These employees were paid ₹15,000 per month and were from Jamalpur and Aligarh areas of Uttar Pradesh. More than 1,000 fake SIMs and 530 handsets and Mobile phones were used for this scam, said EOW, Odisha Police.

Police said the scammers were extremely sharp and anticipated every move of police and law enforcement agencies. They