Fake Covid report to overseas

Job seeker lands agent in jail

Sleuths of the Mira Bhayandar-Vasai Virar (MBVV) police commissionerate have arrested a fly-by-night agent who had floated a recruitment firm in Mira Road to dupe unemployed youngsters under the pretext of providing overseas jobs with high salaries in reputed Middle East-based shipping companies.

The incident came to light when the accused who has been identified as- Dhiraj Deepbandhu Jha, 30, issued a fake Covid-19 negative certificate to a job seeker without testing his swab sample. The action followed after a 27-yearold youth from Punjab registered a complaint with the Naya Nagar police against the accused for cheating him of Rs. 1.45 lakh to secure a lucrative overseas job in a shipping company.

After killing time on the virtue of lame excuses, the accused gave air-tickets to Dubai along with other documents including visa and a Covid-19 negative certificate. The complainant sensed something fishy as he had not undergone any kind of antigen or RT-PCR test to check the presence of the virus.

Not ruling out more arrests in the case, an investigating officer said, “While the Covid19 negative certificate turned out to be forged, we are checking the authenticity of other documents. It is our appeal to other victims cheated by him to come forward and register their complaints.”