Girl, parents held for bank job fraud

KOLKATA: A couple and their 23-year-old daughter were arrested on Thursday for allegedly duping several youths of lakhs by promising them jobs in a bank. Police say Debatari Bhaduri, who used to work in a finance firm, used the customer database to pick her victims.
Debatari, her father Rabindra Narayan Bhaduri, 55, and mother Susmita, 48, were nabbed from their home in 2K/1A, Gopal Chandra Bose Lane in Sinthee and produced in court.They were remanded to police custody.
According to police, the entire family was involved in the fraud. They allegedly promised job-seekers a staff position in Union Bank of India.
Rabindra Narayan used to claim that his brother held an important post in UBI and could grant many jobs since "senior employees in the nationalized bank had a quota in job vacancies".
Police claim that Debatari used her work experience in a finance company to build a database of people that could be targeted. Telephone numbers from the customer database came handy in their operation. The young woman would call up the numbers randomly and lay traps to lure unemployed youths, say investigators.
Those who responded to her calls were referred to her father. The senior Bhaduri would then take up the case further. He would convince the victims that they had a fair chance of getting employed because his younger brother had enough clout in the bank.
Rabindra Narayan then would ask the victims to deposit the "processing fee", which ranged from anything between Rs 10,000 to 100,000 for jobs that from that of a peon to that of an officer, say police. If any victim got discouraged, he would offer a relaxation', saying that they could pay in installments.
"Our primary probe reveals that the trio duped at least nine persons and they have been operating for the past five to six months. There could be more victims," said deputy commissioner (detective department) Damayanti Sen.
The family's luck ran out on Wednesday when Suraj Shah, a victim, lodged a complaint with Sinthee police station. He alleged that he had paid the Bhaduris Rs 1 lakh through a bank draft but not got the promised job with UBI. This was the only time the family slipped up. They had taken cash from all other job-seekers but took a draft from Suraj. It was easy to track them down from the bank records.