From a small room in a commercial building in Noida Sector 62, three women posing as HR executives at an airline company spent their days calling young jobseekers and offering them roles at Indira Gandhi International Airport. Except, the airline did not exist. Neither did the aviation institute they claimed candidates had to enrol in before joining. 

The telecallers, undergraduates aged between 20 and 25, were arrested last week, along with the alleged mastermind and two other accomplices, for duping job aspirants from Delhi, Chandigarh, Haryana and Punjab, the Delhi police said. Ten victims have been identified so far, said an officer, adding that the number may be a fraction of those cheated, with many victims deciding not to report the crime. 

The fraud is believed to have lasted four to five months, during which the accused collected between ₹7,000 and ₹10,000 from each victim as “registration” or “admission fee”, the police said.

The crime came to light after Vikas Kumar, a resident of Mantola in Paharganj, came across an Instagram advertisement on June 10 offering a job at “Bretish Airways” based at IGI Airport. After filling in his details, he received a call from a woman who introduced herself as Karishma.  She collected his PAN and Aadhaar details, marksheets, and resume via WhatsApp and told him that a diploma in aviation or airport management from “Future Wings Learning Institute” was mandatory for the job.

Mr. Kumar transferred ₹7,000 through UPI. In return, he received what appeared to be an admission slip, a no-objection certificate and a job offer. It was only later when the woman stopped answering his calls that the Paharganj resident realised that he had been cheated and that no such airline exists.

“Analysis of the mobile number, UPI transaction and website registration details led us to the accused. The payments were directly collected by the accused, which helped us trace their location,” said Additional DCP-II (Central) Prashant Choudhary.

The trail led investigators to a rented office at Gaur City Centre Mall in Noida, where mastermind Sandeep Kumar, 23, and his associate Akhil Kumar, 27, were arrested on August 18.

Subsequently, the police arrested Rakesh Kumar, 47, a website developer, who allegedly designed and hosted the fake websites for a fee, along with Shweta, Sapna and Sakshi, the telecallers.

The crackdown has so far resulted in the seizure of two laptops, eight mobile phones, eight SIM cards registered in the names of the three telecallers and two registers containing data on jobseekers.