Foreign job seekers must beware of frauds

TEMPTED by the lucrative offer of chauffeuring in Kuwait, 30 jobseekers contacted a travel agency in the capital after noticing their advertisement in a newspaper in February. Bengal Travels and Tourists at Kazipara charged Tk 3 lakh to Tk 4.5 lakh from each of them for medical tests, visas, airfares and other costs.
In the first week of May, the agency told them that the flight for 22 of them to Kuwait was at 1:30am on May 20. In the morning of that day, the agency handed the 22 jobseekers their passports with visas, air tickets, and other necessary papers and told them to be at the airport on time. But they soon learnt that there was no Kuwait-bound flight scheduled at 1:30am. Then they went to the Expatriate Welfare Desk at the airport only to find out that their visas, air tickets and others documents were forged.
Since 2013, a visa fraud gang has run travel agencies with different names and swindled jobseekers out of almost Tk 10 crore. Some of their agencies were named Air International and Tour, Alif Tours and Travels, Arefin Travels, Sanim Trade International, Ashik Travels, Bengal Travels, MM Travels, Bappi Moni Enterprise and Habib International and swindled jobseekers out of large sums of money.
Some of the arrestees told investigators how they used to cheat innocent jobseekers. The fraudsters used to rent an office first and then decorate it properly with hiring staffs. The general public can learn some lessons from this. Firstly they should be very cautious about offers which are literally too good to be true. Secondly they should carefully investigate any such agency or firm which gives out these ‘heavenly’ offers which later on make life hell for them. If no one among their relatives or friends has gone through such an agency they must view these offers with suspicion.
The police and local administration can do a lot to stop such frauds. If anyone contacts them about fake job offers then they should promptly investigate and find out the real masterminds or perpetrators. If these people were arrested earlier and charged promptly then they would not have been able to swindle so many people.