ED conducts searches in six states, including Kerala, in fake govt job scam
New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) conducted searches in six states on Friday, including Kerala, seizing documents and digital evidence in a multi-state fake government job scam targeting Railway aspirants.
A "sophisticated" racket was operated by issuing fake joining letters, running bogus training centres and creating forged identity cards and email IDs resembling official government addresses, the ED said in a statement.
One such email ID impersonated the Ministry of Railways to send fraudulent appointment letters.
To lend credibility to the scam, the gang allegedly paid salaries for two to three months through bank accounts with government-sounding names such as "Treasury Office RO", "FCI RO," "RRB" and "By Salary", it said.
The searches were carried out by ED's Patna office on January 8 at premises in Muzaffarpur and Motihari in Bihar; Kolkata in West Bengal; Ernakulam, Pandalam, Adoor and Kodur in Kerala; Chennai in Tamil Nadu, Rajkot in Gujarat apart from Gorakhpur, Prayagraj and Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh. The action was initiated under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
During the operations, the agency recovered and seized documents related to sale deeds, bank account details, handwritten notes, cheques, loan agreements, investment records, copies of fake job advertisements and digital evidence, the ED said.
The money laundering probe was initiated on the basis of an FIR registered at the Sonpur Government Railway Police Station in Bihar against some persons identified as Deepak Kumar Tiwari and Saksham Srivastava. They were allegedly found soliciting job seekers at Sonpur Railway Station.
According to the ED, interrogation revealed that the two were part of a larger gang involved in defrauding aspirants by promising government jobs, particularly in the Indian Railways and other departments. The gang allegedly targeted candidates for posts such as RPF personnel, TTEs and technicians. PTI