13,500 conned in job scam

A private job consultancy firm operating from Shivajinagar has been found to have duped nearly 13,500 job aspirants across the country, sources in the Central Crime Branch (CCB) claimed. On Wednesday, acting on a tip-off by a job aspirant, sleuths busted Exalt Consulting Placement Services Pvt. Ltd., which is accused to duping thousands of job aspirants. The cops arrested two employees at the company — Mohammed Shakeel (34) and James (24) — during the raid. The firm’s owner Shabeer Ahmed is absconding. One of the victims, Milind P. from New Delhi, tipped off the police. He expressed relief that CCB had busted the racket and demanded refund of the fee he had paid the company. The firm contacted job aspirants across the country and offered to place them in reputed IT companies in the city for a fee and guaranteed a refund within three months if they failed. An audit revealed that thousands of aspirants were never refunded, and even those who got refunds received a paltry sum, contrary to the firm's promise. Firm tapped into database of job portals Nikhil Krishna, a job aspirant duped by the firm, told The Hindu that he got a call from the firm within minutes of registering on the job portal Naukri.com. The police probe revealed that the firm lifted contact details of job aspirants from various job portals. Deputy Commissioner of Police (crime) Abhishek Goyal said the investigation will look into whether the firm had paid to access the database of job portals or tapped into the information without permission. -The Hindu