A job racket came to light on Wednesday when the salary cheques of employees of a job consultancy firm bounced due to insufficient funds and the owners went missing.

The employees and trainees of the firm approached the Fourth Town police and lodged a complaint.

Fourth Town Inspector D.S.R.V.S.N. Murthy said that Malapragada Gautam Easwar Rao and his wife Malapragada Swati Priya Rao owned a company by name Great Masters Consultancy at Kanderpa Complex in Dondaparthi. The company was floated six months ago and was engaged in training people in HTML, PHP, Web Designing, and job consultancy.

They allegedly collected a sum of Rs. 25,000 for training and later recruited them for in-house projects.

Later, the duo approached the employees for a placement in Singapore and collected Rs. 1 lakh to Rs. 4 lakh from about eight trainees and employees. They also allegedly collected from 15 trainees and employees an amount ranging from Rs. 1 lakh to Rs. 5 lakh under the pretext of doubling the amount in two months under domain business.

Mr. Murthy said they would have collected Rs.40 lakh. Before leaving the station, they had given salary cheques to the employees. Fearing a racket, a few employees and trainees approached the police and lodged a complaint.