SCAMSTERS INC.

Two illegal immigrants from India earned millions of pounds from a visa fraud “factory” that helped an estimated 4,000 bogus students to cheat Britain’s “shambolic” border controls.

The married couple, Jatinder Kumar Sharma and Rakhi Shahi, aided by a network of sham colleges, sold fake academic certificates to clients, who paid up to £4,000 each for a false educational history that would gain them the right to live in Britain. Their success, a Crown Court jury heard, was a damning indictment of the Home Office.

Those involved were so confident of fooling immigration officials that they offered a money-back guarantee to any customer denied a visa.

Police and UK Border Agency (UKBA) officials found 90,000 documents during a raid on two warehouses and the premises of a company called Univisas, in Southall, West London, in February last year. The operation led to the agency’s biggest investigation into organised immigration fraud and the discovery of an international criminal network stretching to the Indian sub-continent.

Two illegal immigrants from India earned millions of pounds from a visa fraud “factory” that helped an estimated 4,000 bogus students to cheat Britain’s “shambolic” border controls.

The married couple, Jatinder Kumar Sharma and Rakhi Shahi, aided by a network of sham colleges, sold fake academic certificates to clients, who paid up to £4,000 each for a false educational history that would gain them the right to live in Britain. Their success, a Crown Court jury heard, was a damning indictment of the Home Office.

Those involved were so confident of fooling immigration officials that they offered a money-back guarantee to any customer denied a visa.

Police and UK Border Agency (UKBA) officials found 90,000 documents during a raid on two warehouses and the premises of a company called Univisas, in Southall, West London, in February last year. The operation led to the agency’s biggest investigation into organised immigration fraud and the discovery of an international criminal network stretching to the Indian sub-continent.

Source: Times Online

The city police on Saturday busted a fake financial company which was planning to take money and property documents from people as
commission after promising crores of rupees as loans from Karur Vysya Bank (KVB). The police arrested two key players of Magnum Finanze, including an auditor and launched a hunt for the managing partners of the firm.

Police entered the company's office at Kodambakkam minutes before several transactions worth crores of rupees were to take place and recovered cheque
leaves which were filled up to Rs 70 crore. However the company's balance in the bank was found to be just Rs 127.

"People should be extremely cautious of people offering such huge loans," said city police commissioner T Rajendran, announcing the arrest of S Mohammad Jagir (40), a native of Kanyakumari who posed as the branch manager of the company, and M Inbaraj (43), an auditor from Virugambakkam. The police have formed special teams to trace managing directors of the company M Mohammad Afsal (33) and H Hariprasad (53), both natives of Kerala.

The fraud came to light when one of the potential customers, who was promised by Maganum Finanze a loan of Rs 7 crore from KVB grew suspicious and crosschecked with the bank.

Inbaraj and Afsal told the customer that they have a surety from KV Bank of Kodambakkam and showed a fake agreement letter saying the bank had promised the company Rs 100 crore. The customer called up the bank manager, who was known to him and found that there was no such agreement.

KVB branch manager Jose Antonio D Silva informed the city police commissioner, who asked the bank fraud detection wing in the central crime branch to rush to the finance company's office. It was later found that the company had issued advertisements in leading English and Tamil newspapers in the city about their offer to issue Rs 25 lakh to Rs 5 crore on mortgage of property documents. Besides keeping the documents, the firm demanded 3% of the loan amount sought, as commission.

The company started a current account in February and got 100 cheque leaves. They advertised about the offer in March and received applications from all over the state and from Bangalore. Jagir and Inbaraj informed the customers to come with the original documents of their properties and three-percentage of the sanctioned amount in cash for getting the cheque on Saturday.

"We approached the office for getting Rs 5 crore for installing a water treatment plant in Thanjavur. We were impressed with the way they handled our request. We were lucky not to have paid them," said Premanand, a businessman from Thanjavur.

Source: TOI

The TOI report on MBBS seats sold for between Rs 12 lakh and Rs 40 lakh by two private colleges in Chennai barely exposes the tip of the
iceberg. The scam gets bigger, more brazen as medical graduates embark on specializations that are necessary for a successful career. The price this year for a post-graduate seat in radiology in most leading private colleges across the country is Rs 2 crore while in cardiology, gynaecology and orthopaedics are priced around Rs 1.5 crore.

The main reason for such high rates is the dearth of seats for PG programmes. The average ratio of undergraduate (MBBS) seats to those for post-graduate is 100:29. In effect, nearly 32,000 doctors graduate from medical schools across the country every year, and the number of PG seats available to them is roughly one-third of the requirement.

itimes: Share your experience on seat-for-sale scam

Across India, there are 9,085 seats for clinical courses like cardiology, radiology, orthopaedics and gynaecology; a mere 662 seats for pre-clinical courses such as anatomy and physiology, and 1,303 seats in para-clinical programmes like pathology, micro-biology and forensic medicine. Of these, a large percentage are in private institutions which enjoy the freedom to charge hefty donations — which means, a bright MBBS graduate with no means to pay has few options.

``In India, only 80 doctors can become cardiologists in a year, while in the US, there are 800 positions to train cardiologists. As for kidney specialists, the US has more nephrologists of Indian origin than India has. India has only 60 seats for nephrology,'' said a Bangalore-based surgeon, who has been fighting for transparent admission procedures in admissions to graduate and post-graduate seats.

``Overall, less than 10% of the graduating medical batch gets PG seats through the general (government) pool,'' said the surgeon. Most PG seats, in simple terms, are auctioned or sold to the highest bidder. It's a system of exploitation that finds its eventual victim in the patient.

A senior doctor says, ``I agree the authorities can't increase seats easily because they don't have that many faculty members. But we need to make necessary amendments to the existing law to meet our growing demand. In the US, even an 80-year-old surgeon is legally authorized to do a brain surgery but here we ask a 60-year-old to retire from teaching,'' he said.

Another senior expert, who has held prestigious posts at the national level, says he has urged the UGC to hold centralized examinations like JEE for admissions to both MBBS and PG courses. ``It's a national shame to commercialize education. Besides, death of merit affects the quality of medical education. When money is paid, these colleges ensure that the exit is definite. The students pass, qualified or not,'' he said.

Source: TOI

By transferring Dr U V Singh, senior Indian Forest Service officer who has been functioning in the Lokayukta team that has been investigating the mining scam, the government has earned the ire of the Lokayukta. Lokayukta Justice N Santosh Hegde, irked by the fact that the government did not obtain his prior concurrence before effecting the transfer, brought the same to the notice of senior government officers.

U V Singh, a 1985 batch IFS officer, who has been functioning as forest conservator in the Bangalore Lake Development Authority, has been promoted as the chief forest conservator and posted as the registrar of Tumkur University, through an order dated May 23.

Singh, who had also functioned in the team that investigated post-2000 mining scam earlier, had reported that Obalapuram Mining Company, with which the state ministers are involved, had illegally conducting mining in the land located within Karnataka border, even though it holds mining lease in Andhra Pradesh alone. Based on this finding, a person named T Narayan Reddy from Bellary had filed a petition in the High Court. The divisional bench of the High Court had ordered for a joint survey of the inter-state border to conclusively arrive at a decision.

Attempts had earlier also been made to separate him from the Lokayukta investigating team. Once he was ordered not to go out of the city while on another occasion, he was transferred as the chief executive officer of Uttara Kannada zilla panchayat. As the Lokayukta expressed his displeasure then, these transfers had to be cancelled.

A senior officer of the chief minister's secretariat said Singh was transferred because of lack of information. In view of subsequent developments, he will be retained at the current place of posting, he confirmed.

Source: Daiji World

A Nigerian who cheated a person from Kalpakkam to the tune of Rs 14.68 lakh through an online lottery scam was arrested in Nasik by the cyber crime cell of the CB-CID and brought to the city on Wednesday. He was identified as Festos alias Murphy Vazigo Agbaifa (38).

According to the police, K Ramamoorthy of Kalpakkam remitted Rs 14.68 lakh towards "service and transfer charges" after receiving mail announcing him as the winner of Rs 4 crore in an online lottery. He was asked to deposit the money in various accounts
of various banks across the country. However, the scamsters stopped all contact with him after getting the money.

Ramamoorthy then lodged a complaint with the cyber crime cell and a special team took up the investigation.

The accounts used by the accused were tracked down and Stephen picked up in Chennai on March 4. Following the tips provided by him, the police arrested another account-holder, Mukesh Anand Chudasama, in Mumbai on May 7. They found that most of the other bank accounts operated by the accused were in fictitious names and had addresses. The police then got these accounts, containing Rs 9 lakh, frozen.

In the follow-up investigation, the cyber crime officials found that the kingpin was a Nigerian based in Mumbai. When police traced his routes, they found that Festos had already been arrested and was lodged in Nasik prison. The CB-CID team then re-arrested him and brought him to Chennai. He has been remanded in judicial custody.

Source:TOI

A Bhayander east-based travel agent was arrested on charges of cheating after he collected huge amounts of money by promising overseas
jobs to unemployed men.

Kumar Gulab Chand Mistry (41), who along with associates ran the Raj International S N Tours and Travels from RNP Park in Bhayander (E), had advertised in newspapers about overseas jobs. A number of aspirants, including some from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, landed at the office. They paid between Rs 15,000 and Rs 70,000 depending on their job profile.

Eknath Gaikwad, a Dombivli resident, was among those who approached the agency for a job. He paid Rs 25,000. On Saturday, when he went to find out about the status of his job, he was told to pay more. But, there was no mention of jobs. Gaikwad, who had sold gold jewellery to arrange for the money, approached the Mira Road police.

The police arrested Mistry and seized 103 passports from his office. Mistry was taken to the Thane court where he was granted bail. His partner Rajan Sharma, based in Delhi, is absconding.

Over 100 men, who had paid money to get overseas jobs, have also approached the police with their complaints.

Source:TOI

The city police on Tuesday busted a five-member gang that has defrauded many private and nationalised banks of crore of rupees by
obtaining credit cards from them on fake identities.

All the accused, who are also wanted in many fraud cases for the last many years, have been arrested by the CIA I from Pakhowal Road, near Rimal Hospital. Twenty credit cards and a number of pan cards
have been recovered from them.

SSP Dr Sukhchain Singh Gill said all the five accused -- Jatinder Singh, a resident of Labour Colony, Gill Road, Shampreet Singh, a resident of Tek Singh Nagar, Gill Road, Maneesh Kumar, a resident of Sham Nagar, Harjinder Singh, a resident of Labour Colony, Gill Road, Pradeep Kumar, a resident of Bawa Colony, Haibowal, were 25 to 26 years old and have been into the ‘business’ for the last many years.

The main accused, Shampreet and Maneesh Kumar, had set up their office, Sam & Associates, in flat number six at Sant Ishar Singh Nagar and had taken the direct marketing agency of ABN Ambro. At that time, Jatinder Singh, who worked as collection person with ICICI Bank, also joined them and then, the trio started taking credit cards on fake identities.

Their modus operandi was: after taking credit cards, instead of shopping, they used to take cash from showroom owners, giving them three to five per cent of money. In this way, they cheated many banks, including State Bank of India, ICICI, HDFC, HSBC and ABN Ambro, among others.

Gill said they suspected the involvement of a number of people in this scam and would arrest them soon.

Source:TOI

A medicine scam estimated to run into several crores of rupees has surfaced in the country’s largest cancer specialty hospital here. On Friday, the Anti-Corruption Branch of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) registered a case against some staff members of the Tata Memorial Hospital (TMH) dispensary on allegations of misappropriation of medicines.

“Based on information, we have registered a case against six persons who worked at the dispensary and pharmacy of the Tata Memorial Hospital on charges of allegedly misappropriating medicines that were purportedly issued to patients. Since 7 am on Friday, our teams have been conducting raids at the dispensary office of the hospital and the residences of these six persons,” said Rishi Raj Singh, joint director, CBI.

A case under the Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Corruption Act has been registered against the hospital’s assistant medical superintendent Dr Rekha Batura, officer in-charge of the dispensary Y B Dixit, pharmacists P B Dhake, Namita Deshpande and Leena Nakhare and department clerk Chetna Pawar . The ACB officials, however, said that investigation is likely to unearth the involvement of six to seven senior officials from the hospital. “The scam is suspected to be running since the past three-four years. And as we have learnt that the TMH dispensary has a yearly turnover of around Rs 80.5 crore, we expect that the misappropriation would also run into several crores,” said Singh.

Source: Indian Express