In a statement, India’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs alerted its nationals to an increase in scams involving misleading job offers abroad by recruitment agents not registered with the agency.

The Foreign Ministry stated that charges of between 200,000 and 500,000 Indian rupees, that’s between 2,400 and more than 6,000 dollars, have been detected by individuals operating without the required license for any of these procedures.

Many of these illegal agents operate through social networks such as Facebook and Whatsapp, text messages and other similar means, through agencies that provide little or no contact or details about their whereabouts, according to the official note.

They usually communicate only through Whatsapp, making it difficult to determine the location and identity of the caller and the authenticity of the job offer, and sometimes attract the tricked people into working under difficult and life-threatening conditions, the government entity said.

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