Kathmandu, March 3

Cases of job fraud have shot up in the capital with the increase in number of youths aspiring for employment abroad.

Police held two persons on the charge of swindling three foreign employment aspirants of Rs 1.15 million from the capital yesterday. Those arrested are Sujan Lamsal (22) of Lamjung and Pramod Ghimire (21) of Palpa district.

The duo, operators of the Bag Bazaaar-based Immigrant Consultancy Private Limited, assured three youth of Lamjung district  Bishnu Hari Adhikari (27), Rajesh Adhikari (24) and Sadhuram Basel (22)  of employment in Russia.

They collected Rs 500,000 each from the Adhikari duo and Rs 150,000 from Basel, but did not keep their promise, police said.

The MPCD on Tuesday arrested a suspect on the charge of cheating an unemployed youth with the promise of securing him the post of ASI in the National Investigation Department.

According to officials, Ajit Basnet (40) of Chabahil, Kathmandu had swindled Milan Pandey (20) of Gulmi of Rs 65,000. He had posed as a chaffeur of an AIGP at the NID to take the victim into confidence.

The MPCD received 37 complaints of fraud in the fiscal year 2013/14 against 98 in 2014/15 and 104 in the first eight months of the current fiscal. Of them, job fraud cases top the crime chart.

Even a Nepali Congress leader of Sindhupalchowk fell pray to fraudsters in the hope of becoming a member of Parliament.

Devendra Kumar Bartaula (44) of Kathmandu had allegedly cheated Krishna Shrestha of two million rupees, promising him a seat in the Parliament. Bartaula had told Shrestha that it would cost him five million rupees to become a member of the Parliament.

An official at the MPCD said it was receiving more complaints related to job fraud in recent times. “More job fraud cases are being recorded as more people are reporting such incidents to the police due to increased awareness,” he informed.

In Nepal, unemployment rate stands at 3.6 per cent. But another 10.8 per cent of people of working age group, who are economically active, are unemployed.

Similarly, 3.7 per cent of the economically active population of working age are in jobs that do not match their skills and another 2.8 per cent are earning less as compared to their skills.

A person who has worked for at least an hour in a week is considered as employed. This definition has led to recording of lower unemployment rates in developing countries.