Ghaziabad:In a recent case of medicaladmission fraud, an MBBS aspirant was duped of Rs 17.5 lakh by a gang operating from a small office in Kaushambi Mall,Ghaziabad. As per a recent TOI report, the medical student went to Spain on a short-term student visa in March last year. She was forced to stay in a shared bunker-like accommodation for over a year after she could not find a seat at the university or a hostel despite assurances from the gang. After all this, she finally returned to India this April. Subsequently, her family filed a police complaint against nine people associated with the consultancy, The internationally, including its director. According to the complaint, the complainant, a resident of Greater Noida, claimed she approached the consultancy for admission of her daughter to a medical program abroad in 2023. She met the company's director, Vivek Kumar and other employees, Archana Gautam, Rahul Gautam, Himanshi, Shishupal, Pushpak, Kartik, and Omkar, who assured her of admission to the University of Barcelona. The consultancy had promised to arrange visas, accommodation and other logistics in Europe in collaboration with the agency's partner, Susmita Nanda. "They asked me to deposit Rs 17.5 lakh in several accounts, including Rs 8.75 lakh in a bank account in Poland," she claimed. Her daughter arrived in Barcelona on March 17, 2024, expecting the agency to arrange for her accommodation and admission. "Instead, she was placed in a bunker-like dormitory in extremely poor condition. My daughter had to arrange for her own accommodation, spending an additional ₹8 lakh, but later found out she wasn't admitted to any medical program”. By April 2025, the family realised the consultancy's promises were false. Attempts to contact the Kaushambi office were unsuccessful, and Poddar eventually learned that the accused had absconded. As per theTOImedia news report, ACP Indirapuram Abhishek Srivastava said that an FIR was registered at Kaushambi police station against nine accused under sections 420 (cheating) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC.