Five people, including one who holds a PhD in human resources, have been arrested from Gurgaon for allegedly duping over 500 people of Rs 7.5 crore on the pretext of providing them jobs in leading multi-national companies, Delhi Police said on Friday.
The main accused, Manoj Hota, 44, worked as a visiting faculty at various universities and colleges for a few years and later set up a college that did not run well and landed him in a huge debt.
He is an MBA and has done his PhD in Human Resources from a reputed university.
Debt-laden, Hota decided to scam people. He recruited well-qualified persons like Ashish Ranjan, 26, Abhishek Kumar, 27, who are engineers and could talk fluently in English, to dupe people, police said.
The accused created several fake websites and email IDs in the name of multi-national companies, offered people managerial jobs there and then, citing various reasons like selection process, document verification or aptitude test, made them deposit money in various bank accounts, said Deputy Commissioner of Police (Cyber Cell) Anyesh Roy.
More than 500 people have been cheated of Rs. 7.5 crore, police said.
The matter came to light when police received a complaint from a resident of Uttam Nagar who was duped of almost Rs 20 lakh by the accused.
"After the location of the accused was tracked, a raid was conducted by the team at an illegal call centre that the accused were running in Gurgaon. Five people, including the mastermind Manoj Hota, were arrested from the spot," the DCP said.
Apart from Hota, Ranjan and Kumar, police have also arrested Sonu Rawal, 29, and Shaik Pintu Ali, 28.
Seven computers and laptops and 14 mobile phones have been seized from the accused, police said, adding further investigation was underway.
