Cashing in on desperation: Offering ‘jobs’, man makes away with a million

He offered to get them jobs in the CDA at good posts in exchange for a sum of money.


Umer Nangiana April 01, 2012

ISLAMABAD:


It only took him five pieces of paper to make a million rupees. Now the Aabpara police are looking for him. 


When it comes to jobs, especially lucrative ones in the Capital Development Authority (CDA), people with no aversion to palm-greasing are willing to pay huge sums to get them.

This man took advantage of such people with an offer to ‘help’ them obtain permanent government employment.

He identified himself as Arshad Shakeel, a resident of Lahore, and introduced himself to Yousuf Ali, a resident of Sector G-6/1-2, as a director in the city’s civic body.

He came to live in the neighbourhood and befriended many locals including Ali. “He won everybody’s trust,” Ali told the Aabpara police in his complaint against the fraudster. Once Shakeel was certain people would believe him, he offered to get them jobs in the CDA at good posts in exchange for a sum of money.

Ali said, “He said there were vacancies and he could get one for two hundred thousand rupees.”

The complainant said he gave Shakeel about a million rupees to get jobs for two of his brothers and three cousins. Three days after getting the money, Shakeel returned with appointment letters with CDA letterheads and gave them to Ali.

The next day he was gone, leaving behind five excited “CDA employees”, appointment letters in hand. “The letters told us to report for duty after a week,” Ali told the police. In the meanwhile, Ali suspicious of Shakeel’s disappearance, decided to confirm the appointments with the civic body.

On inquiry, the CDA denied they had any director named Arshad Shakeel and confirmed that the appointment letters were fakes as they were not issued by the civic body.

After realising he had been duped, Ali went straight to the Aabpara police and lodged a fraud case against Shakeel.

However, the police believe that the impersonator was using a fake name and it wouldn’t be easy to track him down.

Although he did not admit it, the police failed to notice that Ali too was part of the problem.

He paid a ‘government official’ to get jobs. However, the police said that because Ali “thought the payment was some sort of a fee for the vacancy”, they could not take action against him until a complaint was lodged against him.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 2nd, 2012.

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