BBC:
A few weeks ago, police in India discovered that scammers had set up a fake bank branch – complete with a logo, office furniture and even some employees – in a village in Chhattisgarh state. BBC Hindi pieced together what happened.
Jyoti Yadav was delighted when she got a job as an office assistant at a recently opened bank branch near her village.
She had been job-hunting for four years, facing increasing financial pressure.
The bank officials asked her to join immediately, and she agreed because it was the State Bank of India (SBI), the country’s largest government-backed lender and one of its most recognisable brands.
But just a week after she joined, the police and employees from a nearby branch of SBI arrived at the bank – about 200 km (124 miles) from Chhattisgarh’s capital, Raipur – and told them it was fake.
Yadav was stunned. She said the people who gave her a job had conducted an interview, issued her an appointment letter and provided an identity card, with a promised salary of 30,000 rupees ($357; £273) a month. She had begun work along with five others.
Police have arrested one person and say they are on the lookout for eight others.
Employment-related scams are not uncommon in India, where millions of young people are desperate to find a stable job. In 2022, more than two dozen men who thought they would get jobs with the Indian Railways were tricked into counting trains for days.
The job crisis is particularly acute in small towns and villages, where work opportunities are limited, often forcing young people to take risks such as paying bribes – which is illegal in India – for jobs that promise to secure their future.
The police said that the six employees of the fake bank came from financially weak backgrounds, and that some of them had paid substantial amounts as bribes for the job.
An officer involved in the investigation told BBC Hindi that the motive appeared to be swindling job-seekers of money.
According to the initial investigation, a large number of people were asked for money under the pretence of securing a bank job and were sent to the fake branch for “training”, the officer said.
After around two weeks of training, they were sent back with the promise that they would be “appointed” to an SBI branch soon, he added.
Those who were allegedly duped say the fraudsters made the bank appear legitimate.
Yadav says she filed an online form, uploaded her educational certificates and submitted biometric data as part of the onboarding process – common when joining many Indian firms.
“I never felt for a moment that I was caught in a fraud. But now everything is ruined,” she said.
She claimed to have paid 250,000 rupees – a sum she had difficulty raising – as a bribe for the job.
Rohini Sahu, from a village in the neighbouring district, was offered a job as a marketing officer by the fake employers.
Sahu told BBC Hindi that her offer letter said that she had been appointed to the Raipur branch of the SBI, but had to undergo training at this branch.
The letter, the signboard, the building and its infrastructure all convinced her it was a real bank.
“No one could have imagined in their wildest dreams that this wasn’t a legitimate bank,” she says
Residents of the village where the branch was located say they were happy when it came up as it promised easy access to banking services.
But some villagers who wanted to open accounts were told by employees that the bank was still installing servers and that they should return next month.
For some, it also offered business opportunities.
Ajay Agarwal, one of the villagers, immediately applied to run a kiosk under a scheme that allows people to operate limited banking services outside the premises of the bank.
Such banking kiosks are common in villages and small towns across India.
But he says he soon grew sceptical after his application was not approved, and that he approached the SBI branch nearby to ask questions about the branch.
Soon, the local police raided the bank. But by then the “manager” of the branch had already absconded.
The man they have arrested, police say, is also an accused in another job scam in the state. He has not issued any statement in police custody.
