Consultancy ‘fakes’ e-mail IDs to give non-existing job offers

The chairman of a manpower consulting company based in Indiranagar has been arrested for cheating people seeking jobs in India and abroad.

Indiranagar police arrested 55-year-old Srinivas Raghavan Iyengar, who heads VRR Ventures Private Limited, following a complaint by one of the job aspirants, Aruna D V. Iyengar is a resident of Armugam Circle in Basavanagudi.

Police said Iyengar and his associates — Ramakrishna D, Santosh Kumar J and Rajeev Rao H R — had taken Rs 20.57 lakh from Aruna and three other job aspirants Yogananda, Ranjith S D and Bharadwaj G M since March 2020. The money was billed towards processing, document verification and other charges.

Iyengar and his associates later created fake e-mail IDs of various companies and sent fake job offers to the four aspirants. The fraud came to light when the job aspirants checked with the companies concerned and showed them the offer letters, a police officer said.

According to police, Iyengar claimed that his company provides manpower and software consultancy. In other words, it helps job seekers get hired by reputable companies both in India and abroad. But most job seekers found that this wasn’t the case.

For now, Iyengar and other suspects have been booked for cheating and forgery. Police believe Iyengar cheated many more people and have urged other victims to file complaints.