Two youths running fake website in name of Odisha power utility arrested

Sambalpur: The Cyber Cell arrested two persons including a former student of VSSUT for allegedly defrauding youths with promises to provide them jobs through a website. The arrested youths were Sunil Mishra, who passed out from VSSUT in 2018, and Kara Tapas Mohapatra, a SIM card seller.

An official of the Cyber cell said the two accused had been running a fake website – www.wescoodisha.co.in since 2019.

The website was having a copy of the homepage of WESCO Utility website and invited job applications from youths for different posts on June 26. The fake website asked applicants to pay Rs 500 each to apply for the posts. More than 1,000 young men and women applied on the fake website, informed the police official.

Based on a complaint filed by an official of the WESCO Sambalpur division on July 27, the Cyber cell blocked the fake website and launched an investigation.

The police got a lead in the case after tracking a mobile number which was given during designing of the fake website. After tracking the mobile number for three months, the Cyber Cell traced the two accused from Rourkela and arrested them.

The bank account in which the duped amount was parked has been seized, the police official said, adding that details of the defrauded amount are yet to be found out.

Preliminary investigation shows the former VSSUT student had designed the fake website whereas Tapas Kumar provided the mobile SIM card. Further probe into the case is on.