Taramani police arrested two travel agents from Cuddalore for cheating job aspirants. The agents had taken money from the aspirants online, by promising to get them jobs in foreign countries.
Police said Valli, 50 of Bharathi Nagar, Taramani lodged a complaint with the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Adyar alleging that her son Murugesan was cheated by an unknown company which promised to send him abroad after taking a commission of ₹47,000. A few days ago, her family came across an advertisement on TV about jobs in a power plant in Malaysia. Evincing interest, her son called the number mentioned in the advertisement and the caller on the other end demanded ₹47,000 as processing fee for verification of the passport and other documents. The family paid the amount in two instalments to the bank account mentioned by the caller. They even arranged for a fake medical test at a private hospital at Aminjikarai. Later, the agents switched off their mobile phones and were not reachable.
A case was registered at Taramani police station and police personnel of the cyber crime team, Adyar analysed call records and the bank account details and traced the whereabouts of the accused in Cuddalore.
Police arrested Manimaran, 50 and Siva alias Sivanantham of Thirupathiripuliyur, of Cuddalore and recovered many passports of victims from their office along with a car. They were running a travel agency in Thirupathiripuliyur from 2012 and also a man power agency called Sankaradevi Consultancy. They had sent a few people abroad in the initial days. Later, they contacted job aspirants over phone and cheated them after receiving money on the pretext of processing fees, police said.
