3 held for duping people on pretext of providing jobs in Canada

Police said the accused have been identified as Tarun Kumar (43), Vinayak (29) and Jaswinder Singh (25) -- all residents of Punjab.

New Delhi: The Delhi Police has arrested three people and claimed to have busted a gang of cyber frauds, who cheated several people on the pretext of providing them with jobs in Canada, an official said Thursday.

Police said the accused have been identified as Tarun Kumar (43), Vinayak (29) and Jaswinder Singh (25) — all residents of Punjab.

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Special Commissioner of Police (Crime) Ravindra Singh Yadav said the accused had lured the victims with job offers in Canada and Gulf countries and provided them with Canadian visa, which were later found to be fake. “Most of the victims are from Punjab. A team was formed to investigate the entire case,” Yadav said.

Police said an investigation was taken up after an FIR was registered in the matter.

Yadav said the team collected leads, raided an office in Chandigarh and arrested one person named Tarun.

The Special Commissioner of Police (Crime) said Tarun was previously involved in two different cases registered against him in Punjab.

He later told the police about his two other associates, Jaswinder and Vinayak, who were arrested too, Yadav said.

He added the police came to know during interrogation that Tarun — the mastermind of this racket — is an undergraduate.

Police said the accused used to hire graduate employees to facilitate the acquisition of a manpower licence from the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, in the name of hired employees.

“The accused told us that later they approached potential customers through social media advertisements and subsequent phone calls in different states about providing consultation and arranging visa,” Yadav said.

“They used to charge Rs 50,000 to Rs 2 lakh per person in advance depending upon the country for which they were applying for. So far, they have cheated more than 1,000 people,” he added.

Police have recovered six passports, stamps, swipe machine, laptops, printers, photocopy of visa and other documents besides laminator machine, barcode printer, rolls of barcode and stickers from the accused.