Frauds print fake visas, cheat expat jobseekers

Six friends fear that they may have lost their savings and passports after a fraudulent recruitment agent in India allegedly bamboozled the group. The victims, all Indian nationals, who thought they would be travelling together to the Kingdom after being placed in jobs are now in a fix after realising they were scammed. The group has been allegedly cheated by a fake recruitment agent in India. The copy of the visa obtained by Tribune had wrong information entered by the so-called agent. The victims said that they gave the money to the agent as he was known to deal with visa related matters. A brother of one of the victims said that it was an acquaintance of his brother’s friend who did the cheating. “My brother has been looking for an overseas job for quite a while.

His friend informed him that he knows someone who is able to recruit people to companies in the Gulf. “My brother contacted this person and a job was promised for him. Subsequently, all other friends also contacted the person and were promised jobs in the Kingdom. “The agent demanded Rs 60,000 (BD325) per visa and four of them obliged, giving him the money he asked for. My brother and one of his friends are yet to pay, but have handed over their passports.”

The group only realised the scam when one of the victims contacted a manager of one of the companies, under whose name the visa was issued. “I was contacted by a person who said his brother had received a visa to join my company. I was surprised because our company did not have any recruitment from India in recent times,” the manager told Tribune.

“The victims then sent me the visa, which they received. The visa is obviously fake and photo-shopped. One of the obvious mistakes made by the agent is that they have printed a phone number in the name of CPR number,” the manager said. The manager urged the authorities to carry out a probe into the scam, which could adversely affect the future of many expatriate jobseekers.