Duped of ₹8 lakh, man started his own job racket

In 2014, Rawender Singh, 30, fell victim to a fake job racket and lost Rs 8 lakh.

However, instead of despairing over the loss of money, he decided to use the experience to start cheating other unemployed victims — on a larger scale and in a planned manner.

By the time Rawender and his three associates finally landed in police net on Tuesday, they had already cheated over 50 persons of Rs 4-8 lakh each in the last three years, said Nupur Prasad, DCP (Shahdara).

Rawender and his associates would promise jobs with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the Food Corporation of India (FCI) and the Indian Railways. But, they did not disappear with their money after.

They would organise the process of getting a government job — from filling a form to getting the employment letter. “To come across as convincing, the racketeers organised fake competitive exams,” said the DCP.

Rawender, alleged mastermind, got married in 2014 . But the additional expenses that come with marriage forced him to look out for a government job. It was at that time that Rawender met a man named Abhishek Pandey who promised to get him a grade C job with the Food Corporation of India. Pandey too had an elaborate network and tricked Rawender into believing that he was actually being given a job.

“Rawender went through the fake job process for six months lost a total of ₹8 lakh to Pandey. By the end of six months, Rawender realised he was only being tricked and there was no FCI job waiting for him,” said an investigator.

When he realised he was not going to get his money back money, he did not approach the police. Instead he decided to use his bad experience to begin duping job aspirants like him. He roped in his cousin, Ankit Singh, and some other friends. “They cheated 550 victims in three years,” said an investigator.

The two cousins and their two associates were finally nabbed by a Delhi Police team earlier this week when one of the victims approached the police to allege he had lost around ₹7.5 lakh.

When Ankit was brought to the Vivek Vihar police station for questioning, he brought his fake CBI identity card along. “For over an hour he insisted that he was a sub-inspector with the CBI. We had to cross-question him about the organisational structure of the CBI before he confessed to being a cheat,” said an investigator.