UPDATE: At the intervention of elders and well-wishers, both parties have settled their disputes in terms of the compromise. Accordingly, the Telangana high court, in an order dated 3/09/2019, quashed all proceedings in the case.

‘35k applicants from foreign nations duped’

HYDERABAD: A mega employment racket — wherein close to one lakh jobseekers from India and other countries have been cheated and ₹28 crore collected — was busted by the Cyberabad police after arresting the CEO and director of a Hyderabad-based company along with 13 employees. The accused have been booked for cheating and their bank accounts frozen The racket came to light after city-based youth Yedukondalu Gannavarapu approached the cops on January 21.Yedukondalu lost $675 which he had deposited in Wisdom IT Services India Pvt Ltd, run by Ajay Kolla, who introduced himself as the CEO of the firm. Probe revealed that the fraudulent company had cheated 69,962 job applicants from India alone and collected Rs 28 crore in the process.Cops said 35,000 applicants from foreign countries had also been conned. The cyber crime police found that Wisdom’s ‘head of operations’ of India and Gulf, his team leaders and sales executives began contacting job-seekers from India, Gulf and countries like the Netherlands, Jordan, the UK, Sri Lanka, Australia and Malaysia and collecting huge sums. Ajay set up the fake firm in 2009, offering IT and IT-enabled services in Hi-Tec City, Madhapur, and even got it registered with the registrar of companies in February 2011.The team leaders and sales executives, India and Gulf operations, would conduct fake interviews by introducing themselves as ‘HR personnel’ of top MNCs to cheat the applicants.Yedukondalu, who uploaded his resume on Wisdomjobgulf.com job portal seeking a job in the Middle-East, received a call from a sales executive, offering the ‘kind of job’ he was looking out for. He was told to deposit $150 in their ‘resume forwarding’ service and assured of a placement in a Middle East-based firm, with which Wisdom has a tie-up.The Hyderabadi youth gave an interview over phone to the HR manager of Raven General Petroleum in Dubai named Angela Bose, who told him that they were offering him a senior engineer post. He was then asked to deposit $525 towards security deposit for verification of certificates, which he did. He realised he was conned when communication from Raven and Wisdom companies stopped, following which he approached Cyberabad cops.Meanwhile, cops have frozen ₹19 lakh deposits in accounts of all the accused, while the CEO and other employees were booked.