Bangalore doctor conned online about UN job

Her dream was to work abroad. She thought that her prayers had been finally answered when she came across a job as a health officer in the United Nations.

Little did this doctor from Bangalore realise that she was falling into the trap of a con artist. In the end, she ended up losing Rs 4.69 lakh.

Dr B M Deepa, 24, is shattered after this incident and has lodged a complaint with the cyber crime police against Dr Cameron, Libi, Dr Christy Owen, who claimed to be the chief administrative officer of the US Committee for UN, New York, Elliot Robinson, who allegedly posed as the head, audit department, US Department of State, Washington; and Dr Albert Arkansas, assistant secretary, Department of Homeland Security, US department.

How it unfolded? All interaction that Deepa had was through email. She posted her resume on a job site and on January 24, she received a mail from a person by the name of Dr David Cameron.

He had claimed to be the recruitment officer, US Committee for the UN. Deepa was offered the job of a health officer.

She was also promised a trip to Paris for a month before she could take up her assignment in Qatar.

Deepa, obviously thrilled with the offer, went about filling application forms online.

She received the letter of contract and then sent across her photograph and a copy of her passport.

After this she paid $660 online towards registration fee. Later she sent $1,700 and a week later she sent $ 2,796.

Deepa was told that the amount would be required for the initial process and would be refunded.

Trusting them, she sent Rs 1,06,607 towards flight charges and visa processing.

She waited and finally in March 2007, she was informed that the training programme had been postponed by a month.

She made a couple of more calls after a fortnight, but she was asked to wait a while longer.

A few days later she received an email asking her to pay $2,560. She called them, but did not get any convincing reply.

Deepa began to grow suspicious and then thought that she had had enough.

She approached the cyber crime police and lodged a complaint. An officer in the cyber crime police station told rediff.com that they would issue notices to the accused persons through the Interpol and commence investigations into the case.