Mumbai court rejects bail to 3 men booked in Laos fake recruitment scam

NIA had earlier this year taken over a probe from Mumbai police into alleged organised trafficking syndicate which lured and sent youngsters to foreign countries from India.

The three accused submitted before the court that the case against them was not of trafficking but at the most breach of contract for not rendering the services as agreed to in the employment contracts given to the youth.

The accused were booked under charges including criminal conspiracy, trafficking of persons and other sections of the Indian Penal Code and Emigration Act.

NIA alleged that the LongSheng company ran a fake call centre and those recruited were to be used to run cyber scams by duping people for financial gains. It said the accused with specific roles given to each would conduct interviews, shortlist and then arrange logistics for those recruited.

They were then given ‘jobs’ in fake call centres with access to hacked Facebook accounts through which they would send friend requests to people in the US, UK and India with a fake name of ‘Ana Flitova’, posing as a Russian model, the NIA said. They were then asked to convince customers to invest in crypto currency and then duped them of their investments.

“They (the accused) were party in recruiting and sending the youths from India under the guise of employment in LongSheng company, so as to achieve the objects of criminal conspiracy hatched by these accused and their other associates,” special judge B D Shelke said in the order.

The court also said that considering the nature and gravity of the offence, there is a possibility that the accused may flee or tamper with evidence or threaten witnesses if allowed to be released.