Fake Certificate racket busted after raids on 7 consultancy firms

Bangalore: Oct 1 (DHNS) : The Central Crime Branch (CCB) police have unearthed a major scam by raiding seven consultancy firms which provided fake certificates to around 25,000 people.

It is suspected that these people are now working in various companies in the country and abroad on the strength of these fake documents.

The accused were also running a call centre conducting background verification of candidates who attend interviews by showing fake certificates.

Briefing reporters, Police Commissioner M N Reddi said the CCB officers raided Tharangi Instomatic Consultancy Service in Tilak Nagar and arrested four men – Kiran Kumar, 35, Ranga Raju, 35, Sheikh Ahmed, 39, and Balraj, 28.

Simultaneous raids were also conducted in BTM Layout I Stage, KEB Layout in Mico Layout, JP Nagar III Stage and VII Stage and another couple of places on Monday.

16 arrested

The police have arrested 16 people and are on the lookout for four others. They have recovered more than 25 telephones, four mobile phones, identity cards, appointment letters, relieving letters, work experience letters, access cards, among other documents.
A senior police officer said the accused registered several fake companies under different names with the Registrar of Companies.

They placed advertisements online by providing them with contact numbers. The unemployed youth would contact them for a job.

Later, they would tell them they could provide them any certificate they want for a certain amount. They would ask the youth to meet them at their consultancy office and give them the choice of providing them with fake letters of any company they want.

They would charge Rs 30,000 for a fake experience letter from a well-established company and Rs 15,000 for an experience letter from a fake company.

Unemployed graduates, with the help of fake certificates, would attend interviews in major companies.

The interviewer would then crosscheck with the previous company for verification of the candidate. They would call up the contact number provided on the fake letters and it would get routed to the call centre set up by the accused who would tell them that the candidate was working in their company and was hard working and well-behaved.

This would help in the individual getting the job with fake experience letter.

Reddi said, “They received an e-mail from a person who explained about the scam and this was forwarded to the CCB who verified and then carried out the raid. They sent a constable in the guise of an unemployed youth, who went and asked them for a certificate so that it would get him a job. The company people gave them the fake certificate and took certain amount of money, which helped in exposing the scam.”