Woman, part of gang which ran elaborate govt job scam, held

CHENNAI: A gang which targeted unemployed youth seeking government jobs and to make them believe, even made them attend bogus exams at the Secretariat with the help of a low-level staff there have been busted by the Chennai police.

The gang had allegedly swindled more than Rs 3 crore from more than hundred aspirants, police said.

On Friday, Central Crime Branch (CCB) of the city police arrested, RK Revathy (28) of Thanjavur, who was part of the gang and collected money from several aspirants on behalf of them.

While the main accused, Vanaraja is still absconding, police arrested his associates, Mohanraj and a record clerk in the Secretariat, Purushothaman, earlier this year.

According to an investigating official, Revathy floated a non-existent consultancy firm in the name of RK Consultancy and created a Whatsapp group, in which she posted employment notices in government offices and claimed that she could help youngsters get those jobs for a fee, ranging from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 15 lakh.

Explaining the modus operandi of the gang, an official with CCB said that after getting the money from the aspirants, they would be made to come to Secretariat, to gain their confidence. There, they will be shown a fake appointment order and the aspirants would be convinced that they got their job. A few months later, the gang returns a portion of the money to the aspirant claiming that the jobs could not be processed now and most of them believe that they were not cheated and the gang goes about targeting the next set, the official added.

Police have recovered original certificates of some of the aspirants and documents from Revathy. Investigations revealed that Revathy herself had first contacted the main consultancy for a job a few years ago and eventually became part of their gang.

She was produced before a magistrate and remanded in judicial custody.