A few weeks ago, police in India discovered that scammers had set up a fake lender 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 lender branch near her village.

She had been job-hunting for four years, facing increasing monetary pressure.

The lender officials asked her to join immediately, and she agreed because it was the State lender 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 lender – about 200 km (124 miles) from Chhattisgarh’s fund, 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 note 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 declare they are on the lookout for eight others.

Employment-related scams are not uncommon in India, where millions of youthful people are desperate to discover 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 tiny towns and villages, where work opportunities are limited, often forcing youthful people to receive risks such as paying bribes – which is illegal in India – for jobs that commitment to secure their upcoming.

The police said that the six employees of the fake lender came from financially frail 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 lender 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 commitment that they would be “appointed” to an SBI branch soon, he added.

Those who were allegedly duped declare the fraudsters made the lender appear legitimate.

Yadav says she filed an online form, uploaded her educational certificates and submitted biometric data as part of the onboarding procedure – ordinary when joining many Indian firms.

“I never felt for a instant 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 hardship 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 propose note said that she had been appointed to the Raipur branch of the SBI, but had to undergo training at this branch.

The note, the signboard, the building and its infrastructure all convinced her it was a real lender.

“No one could have imagined in their wildest dreams that this wasn’t a legitimate lender,” she says

Residents of the village where the branch was located declare they were joyful when it came up as it promised straightforward access to banking services.

But some villagers who wanted to open accounts were told by employees that the lender was still installing servers and that they should gain 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 lender.

Such banking kiosks are ordinary in villages and tiny 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 inquire questions about the branch.

Soon, the local police raided the lender. But by then the “manager” of the branch had already absconded.

The man they have arrested, police declare, is also an accused in another job scam in the state. He has not issued any statement in police safekeeping.

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