Old books digitisation: Fraudsters dupe 620 people by offering fake jobs, nabbed in Hyderabad

Hyderabad: In continuation of the series of arrests in the digitisation of old novels and books fraud case, the Hyderabad Central Crime Station officials on Thursday night arrested Deepak Sharma, the prime suspect and Chief Executive Officer of Ghaziabad-based Diginal India Pvt. Ltd on charges of cheating people to the tune of several crores. Deepak […]

Hyderabad: In continuation of the series of arrests in the digitisation of old novels and books fraud case, the Hyderabad Central Crime Station officials on Thursday night arrested Deepak Sharma, the prime suspect and Chief Executive Officer of Ghaziabad-based Diginal India Pvt. Ltd on charges of cheating people to the tune of several crores.

Deepak Sharma (27), from North East Delhi, opened a branch in Banjara Hills and between July 2021 and June 2022, along with his associates Syed Sameer Uddin, Ashish Kumar and Amith Sharma, all employees of Diginal India, offered work from home the job of digitization or scanning old novel books.

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“To attract job aspirants, they published the scheme in newspapers, used SMSs and social media platforms saying that 10,000 pages needed to be digitised within 25 days while assuring Rs.50,000 as monthly income. As a caution deposit, they collected Rs.1 lakh from aspirants,” said a senior official from CCS.

In addition, they also offered free scanners and claimed to be having agreements with reputed Non-Government Organisations in the USA and Europe.

Attracted by the offer, several people approached the suspects at their regional office in Banjara Hills. About 620 people joined as members in the fraudulent scheme, from whom the suspects collected nearly Rs.15 crore as caution deposit and issued receipts.

“The suspects paid the victims for about four months and suddenly shut down offices in Banjara Hills and Ghaziabad in the month of June and fled with the money,” the CCS official said.

Following a complaint, the CCS police had earlier arrested Syed Sameer Uddin, Ashish Kumar and Amit Sharma in the case. They are in judicial remand at present.