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A job racket where 37 unemployed youth paid Rs 1.8 lakh each to a HR consultancy firm after being tricked into believing that they had got lucrative jobs at an IT firm, Wipro Ltd, has been busted following the arrest of four persons.

The accused were identified as Rajiv Ranjan (30) from Bihar, Mohammed Azar (25) native of Andhra Pradesh, Sathya Priya (25) a resident of Tamil Nadu and M N Naryanana (29) hailing from Kerala, according to Bangalore Police Commissioner B G Jyothiprakash Mirji.

The investigation on the basis of a complaint referral made by the technology firm has revealed that the con artistes used a placement agency called Lotus Consultancy, headed by a woman from Coimbatore, Sathyapriya, to lure youths to fake job interviews at Wipro.

Prospective candidates were convinced into coughing up money for jobs in Wipro through an elaborate plan where they were sent to meet the mastermind of the racket, Rajiv Ranjan, a native of Patna, on Wipro’s main campus at Bangalore. Ranjan (30) gained access to Wipro’s main campus here with a valid vendor pass and the ’candidates’ were reportedly let into the campus with guest passes available to vendors. Posing as the managing director of the company, Ranjan conducted interviews at a guest room on the campus before making fake job offers.

Explaining their modus operandi, he said Priya would lure job seekers and collect documents and original certificates from them with a promise to get them employed in Wipro in Bangalore.

The accused would then accompany them to the Wipro campus, where she would arrange for a meeting with her accomplices, posing as Wipro personnel. The accused would then arrange for an "interview" with a person posing as an employee of the HRD division of the company.

Mirji said the accused managed to gain entry into the Wipro campus by misusing the vendor entry cards issued by the company.

The accused would then hand over the victims appointment letters for the post of software trainee engineers with a annual income of Rs 2.94 lakh. The fake letter also asked them to report to Wipro in the month of September, he said.

The racket came to light when one of the victims suspected something amiss and alerted the police, following which each of the accused were nabbed one after the other over the last 15 days, Mirji said.

The gang, all first-time offenders, had been running this racket for about 40 days and had so far cheated 37 people, he said.

The police found goods worth Rs 58.43 lakh, ATM cards, pan cards, gold ornaments, vehicles and duplicate letter heads from the accused.

Three of the gang members were pursuing their management courses and were well qualified, police said.

The accused were tech-savvy and also managed to replicate the Wipro logo on their letter heads. So far the police had not traced any links to any Wipro employee in the racket, but are investigating this angle as well, Mirji said.