Mumbai Following the arrest of four African nationals for allegedly running a fake job racket in the name of the American Consulate, three more city residents have approached the west region cyber police, complaining that they were conned in a similar manner.
The four accused, who hail from different countries in Africa, were arrested from Pune on November 22 this year. They had, from April to July this year, cheated an Andheri resident to the tune of over ₹26 lakh, promising to get her a job at the American Consulate in Mumbai.
On Thursday, an officer with the west region cyber police said, “Three people from different parts of Mumbai have contacted us saying that they were also cheated using a similar modus operandi. We are recording their statements and will soon register fresh FIRs.”
The police have already found one more FIR registered against the accused in Hyderabad, for cheating the complainant to the tune of ₹8.23 lakh, promising him a job as a supervisor at the US Consulate.
“We are examining six bank accounts that the accused were using but there is hardly any money in the accounts, as the accused would promptly withdraw the money from ATMs as soon as it was received. Further, we need to legally establish how much money that passed through the accounts is actually proceeds of a crime, and this can only be done if victims record their statements with us and provide us details of the money they have lost,” the officer said.
He added that the accused are not being cooperative in their interrogation, answering almost every question by saying that they don’t speak English well. Hence, most of the investigation right now depends on technical evidence.
The organised and well-thought-out nature of the racket is apparent from the fact that the accused were impersonating actual serving employees with the American Consulate while approaching their victims. This way, if a victim ran an online search for the name used by the accused, they would find the profiles of the employees online and be convinced that they were getting a genuine job offer, investigators said.
The police are also analysing lists of over two lakh email addresses and 1.04 lakh mobile numbers recovered from the accused, to find out how many of them had already been conned.