Consultants get away with immigration aspirants' money

AHMEDABAD: A large number of people gathered at the Navrangpura police station to lodge a complaint against two immigration consultants, Maya Khudabadi and Vivek Kulshrestha, who allegedly duped them and are absconding since Saturday.
Kulshrestha and Khudabadi used to run an immigration consultancy agency, Kentrack Consultancy Services Ltd, off C G Road.“We decided to file a police complaint after we came to know that the duo vanished with our money,� said Sameer Patel, a marketing executive who claimed to have lost Rs 50,000 which he paid them to immigrate to Australia on a work permit.
Pradeep Joshi, who works as an accountant in a private firm, had paid a huge sum to send his son Dhaval Joshi to Australia. “I had paid the money on September 7 last year and they had promised that they would send my son to Australia within four months. They even gave us contract papers which said my son will be working with Sydney Port Corporation on a monthly salary of Australian $832 plus other perks. I have not been able to contact the duo for the last three days,� said the worried father. The unluckiest person of the lot was Darshan Patel.
He had paid a hefty Rs 1.40 lakh to the firm only seven days back. “They had promised me a UK work permit and I paid them the money on Wednesday. However, they could not be contacted since Thursday,� Patel said. Meanwhile, Navrangpura police have already alerted the authorities of the Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Hyderabad airports along with photographs of the accused and have asked them to inform the police the moment they are spotted.
“The two have been charged under sections 406 and 420 of IPC. They may try to flee from the country to evade arrest,� a police official said. Investigating officer and senior police inspector R B Chauhan said, “We are still in the process of registering complaints. According to a rough estimate, the scam could run in crores of rupees.�