Team Goemkarponn
PONDA: In the well-known cash-for-jobs fraud, the Ponda Police have filed their first chargesheet, identifying Sunita Sawant, her collaborator, suspended constable Sagar Naik, and the scam’s mastermind Deepashri Sawant.
The 600-page chargesheet describes a recovery of Rs 10 lakh and names nine witnesses. The case started when Trupti Prabhu filed a complaint, alleging that Naik had defrauded her of Rs 15 lakh by promising her a teaching position at Marcel School.
Sunita and Deepashri were eventually arrested as a result of the investigation. The accused’s bank accounts and automobiles have been seized by the authorities.
Although this is the first case that the Ponda Police Station has received, investigations are also being conducted at Mardol, where Deepashri Sawant is accused of defrauding other job applicants. Sawant is also charged with cheating two job seekers out of Rs 25 lakh in connection with the Ponda case.
Sawant and his associates are implicated in a broader fraud at Mardol that involved 44 job seekers and Rs 3.88 crore. About Rs 4.1 crore is the entire amount across both stations.
When Pooja Naik was arrested in Mardol on October 22, 2024, for stealing Rs 14 lakh from a job seeker, the scam, which started in 2024, was first exposed. Soon after Sawant’s involvement was discovered, more allegations from Ponda and Mardol surfaced.
Shruti Prabugaonkar and other accused have also been taken into custody in relation to the scheme. Police are still looking into the larger network that is responsible for these scams, even though arrests have been made.
