Man held for running fake education consultancy to dupe medical aspirants

Bengaluru: Sanjay Nagar police have arrested a man who ran a fake education consultancy firm and duped as many as 18 medical aspirants, police officials said Tuesday. The arrested Sharath Goud, 45, hails from Telangana’s Hyderabad and holds a degree in Master of Business Administration (MBA).

Police officials also recovered Rs 47.80 lakh in cash of the Rs 62 lakh cheated sum.

Goud, who has been in Bengaluru for 12 years, set up ‘Nexus Edu’ consultancy on New BEL Road earlier this year, an investigating official told DH. Sharath paid a sum to an agent who gave him the details of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) aspirants.

“For a sum of Rs 10,000, the agent provided an elaborate list of the contact details of 20,000 aspirants,” the official said, adding that the agent was yet to be arrested.

The suspect then hired a few people, including four women as telecallers. These people approached their potential victims, used subterfuge and promised them medical seats in reputed colleges across the country.

In one such case, a victim was demanded to pay Rs 12 lakh for a seat in Kerala’s PK DAS Institute of Medical Sciences as a finder’s fee in the first week of September after convincing him that the seat of a drop-out would be assigned to his son for a lower sum. After negotiations, Rs 10 lakh was agreed, of which Rs 4 lakh was paid in two instalments, the victim alleged.

The victim, who was promised a medical seat in Kerala, was shocked when he approached the college and found out that he was conned, the officials said. When the victim visited the Nexus Edu office, it was shut.

They traced Goud to a luxurious rented apartment in Hyderabad, where he stayed with his wife and child.

After planning and waiting for nearly 16 hours, the officials arrested Goud. They found that he had withdrawn the cheated sum from his bank account and stored it inside a cupboard, in mainly Rs 500 denominations.

“His bank account had a balance of 46 paise,” the official said.

“He had lied to his wife that he was into a real-estate business and the cash was its proceeds,” he added.

Earlier this month, four people were arrested for running a similar scam and operating a fake education consultancy on Cunningham Road.