Saptari, Jan. 31: Over a dozen youths of Saptari district have been swindled by a cheat who, on a social media, offered them attractive job opportunities and handsome pay schemes overseas.

The District Administration Office (DAO), Saptari had received complaints of more than a dozen youths being cheated in the name of foreign employment until Sunday, January 26.

Until Friday, the DAO further received the same complaint about five youths being deceived.

Five youths of Surunga of the district were deceived on Imo, a social media. The fraudster were deceiving them by offering job of vehicle driver in Cambodia.

Suraj Ram, Kamal Ram, Rabindra Ram, Ramananda Ram and one unidentified youth of Suranga Municipality-5 were cheated through Imo.

The fraudster have cheated Rs. 450,000 from them.

A person named Arjun Karki had persuaded five of them by alluring them with employment opportunity oversas through Imo.

After persuading them, Karki had asked money from each of them to proceed for job and visa application.

Four of the deceived had given Rs. 100,000 each and one had given Rs. 50,000 to Karki through International Money Express (IME).

“I sent the money in name of Bipin Basnet through an IME outlet located at Mirchaiya, Siraha,” said Suraj Ram.

Ram said that Rs. 400,000 was sent in the same name from Cuchhepati and Chabahil of Kathmandu.

After receiving the money, Karki had sent Cambodia’s visa for all five of them.

The youths then came to Kathmandu and tried contacting Karki through Imo and other communicating mediums.

As Karki was unreachable and his phone was switched off, the youths found out that they had been swindled.

The youths then lodged a complaint at Migrants Resource Center in Rajbiraj on Thursday.

Operated jointly by Saptari Community Development Center (SCDC) and Safer Migration Project (SaMi), the migrant resource center said that labour certification was received in someone else’s name on the visa.

“The sticker number was not issued on their name. This proves that they were cheated,” said Shambhunanda Chaudhary, Chairman of the Center.

Chaudhary said that the investigation was going on in coordination with DAO.

Prior to this incident, victims had filed complaint at Migrant Resource Center and DAO against Md. Irfan, Md. Mustufa, Md. Alam, Md. Alauddin and Amin Miya of Lahan Municipality-18 and Md. Basir Miya and his son, Sahazad Alam of Dankeshwori Municipality-2, alleging them of cheating people in name of foreign employment.

The father-son duo had received Rs. 135,000 from everyone and had provided them forged visa of Kuwait.

Published on: 1 February 2020 | The Rising Nepal