Bhubaneswar, Dec 15: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Odisha Police arrested an absconding fraudster, who had been on the run in a job fraud case since 2023, from New Delhi, informed a senior official on Monday.

The accused, identified as Gautam Kumar, a resident of Khagaria district in Bihar, was arrested from the Rohini area of New Delhi on December 11, 2025. He was later produced before the Metropolitan Magistrate, Rohini, New Delhi and brought to Odisha on transit remand.

After coming across a fake advertisement published in a local Odia daily on December 28, 2022, the EOW initiated an investigation into the matter, registering a case in this regard in January 2023. The advertisement was published in the name of “Gramin Rojgar Kalyan Sansthan” (GRKS), inviting applications for various jobs like District and Block Coordinator, Computer Operator, Block Surveyor, etc, prescribing the required educational qualification and the remuneration for the individual posts.

The advertisement also contained the name of the website www.grks.org, and the job seekers are required to submit their application through this website by depositing the application fees of Rs 170 for SC and ST candidates and Rs 320 for general candidates.

The police, during investigation, found that the accused Dharmapal Singh, who was arrested earlier in February 2023, is the Secretary of Gramin Rojgar Kalyan Sansthan, having its registered office in New Delhi and other offices in Mumbai, Bhopal and Dehradun.

Singh developed a website www.grks.org with the help of co-accused Amit Singh, an IT expert and Jairam Tiwari, and has been floating advertisements in different regional languages in the local dailies of more than 10 States across the nation, inviting applications for different posts under GRKS.

“Being attracted by such advertisements which resembles to that of the Government, lakhs of unemployed youths across the nation applied for different posts from 2020 onwards by paying the required application fees. The applicants although were being made to sit in the examination yet none of them was being given appointments and were deliberately disqualified,” said the EOW official.

The official further added that GRKS, in this manner, unlawfully diverted application fees running into crores of rupees collected from the victim job applicants. The funds collected were later routed through multiple bank accounts that were ultimately operated and controlled by the accused individuals.

To date, it has been ascertained that approximately Rs 3.48 crore were credited to the account of GRKS. The accused Gautam Kumar was falsely projected as a Skill Developer responsible for training recruits under GRKS. It was also revealed that no training was ever conducted, yet he received Rs 69,20,010 from the GRKS account through his companies—Yotta Edutech Pvt Ltd and Guruba Edutech Pvt Ltd—and a trust, Amogh Seva Foundation. The entire amount was misappropriated by the accused fraudster.

--IANS