Ahmedabad Police nab Jharkhand man in inter-state job fraud racket

The Cyber Crime Branch of the Ahmedabad City Police has arrested the key accused behind an inter-state racket that defrauded job seekers by posing as government officials and offering fake appointments in departments such as the Income Tax, Railways, and the Food Corporation of India.

The accused, Aman Kumar (36), a resident of Dhanbad, Jharkhand, allegedly created fake government domains and forged appointment letters to extort large sums from aspirants under the pretext of offering them government jobs. He was arrested from Dhanbad and brought to Ahmedabad on a transit remand. Police have obtained his eight-day custody for further interrogation.

The case was registered at Ahmedabad City Cyber Crime Police Station under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and Information Technology Act, including cheating, forgery, destruction of evidence and online impersonation.

An elaborate fake setup to dupe aspirants

Investigators said Aman Kumar posed as a senior Income Tax Officer and contacted a woman complainant who was preparing for a government job. He used a forged email ID bearing the Income Tax Department’s name and sent her a fake appointment letter purportedly signed by the Principal Chief Commissioner of Income Tax, Karnataka and Goa Region, Bengaluru.

He also organised fake interviews and training sessions in Bengaluru and Kolkata through his associates, collecting money from candidates in the name of “processing fees” and “verification charges”.

Police said Kumar had studied up to Class 12 and completed a course in Tally and computer accounting. Despite his modest background, he ran a sophisticated cyber network using multiple domain names mimicking government departments, including:

‘incometaxemployeecornerhrms.info’, ‘pwdmaha.info’, ‘indiapostgov.org’, ‘railnetgov.com’, and others.

Previous CBI case and ongoing probe

Police records revealed that Aman Kumar was earlier arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Mumbai, in 2023 for a similar job scam, in which he posed as 'Rupesh' and duped at least 18 youths by promising jobs in central government departments. The CBI had then seized fake government seals, appointment letters, and over ₹14 lakh in cash during raids in Dhanbad and Patna.

Despite being released on bail, Kumar allegedly resumed his fraudulent operations. Ahmedabad Cyber Crime officials said over 100 online complaints linked to his bank accounts have been found on the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (NCRP) across several states, including Gujarat, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.

The accused allegedly used bank accounts belonging to economically weak individuals, paying them small commissions to use their accounts for receiving fraudulent funds.

‘We will trace every link'

A senior cybercrime officer said, “The accused operated with remarkable precision, using fake domains and forged documents to appear legitimate. Our teams are tracing his financial trails and identifying other accomplices involved in the racket.”

The investigation is ongoing, and police suspect that several others across India may have fallen victim to the elaborate job fraud network.