Hyderabad: The Hyderabad city police busted a fake job racket and arrested eight people belonging to two gangs.

They have been accused of cheating around 150 unemployed youth by promising employment in central and State government departments, police said.

Apart from issuing fake certificates from the railway department, the gang also dealt in fake appointment letters for jobs in the High Court, revenue department and also medical fitness certificates.

Acting on a tip-off, police arrested eight people yesterday (2 August) and found they had indulged in cheating job seekers after taking advance between Rs one lakh and Rs 10 lakh from each candidate.

The gang had issued fake appointment orders and training letters to the youth, a police release said adding Rs 24 lakh was seized from them.

The modus operandi of the gang was to inform unemployed youth through their friends and relatives about jobs in various departments including railways, revenue, education and Telangana electricity transmission company among others and demand between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 25 lakh from candidates to secure positions in them, the police said in a press release.

After taking money as advance from the candidates, they used to send fake mails and call letters asking them to report at their respective departments, the police added.

They further said after issuing fake appointment letters of railways, the gang members conducted training classes in West Bengal and Odisha for the "selected" candidates.

Also, some were paid a month's salary, the release said.

So far, 10 cases have been registered in different police stations in the city against the gang members, it added.

A similar incident occurred in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh where a double MBA graduate named Chetan Soni along with his female accomplice Naina Singhal, a B Tech graduate, duped hundreds of job aspirants by offering them fake jobs from an online portal.