KOLLAM — Kerala Police tracked down and arrested a runaway overseas recruitment agency director in Chhattisgarh after an interstate manhunt spanning four states.
Mary Lopez, a resident of Neendakara in Kollam and director of Ezra Global Tours and Travels, stands accused of swindling more than 70 employment aspirants out of ₹1.63 crore by dangling fictitious jobs in Israel, Australia, and the Netherlands. Anchalummoodu Police took Lopez into custody after tracing a fugitive trail that wound through Delhi, Chandigarh, and the mountain hideouts of Manali in Himachal Pradesh before closing in on her in central India.
She had vanished. Her firm shuttered overnight.
Ezra Global Tours and Travels operated its primary hub out of Neeravil in Kollam, pitching fast-track foreign placements to young professionals and laborers seeking work abroad. Over the past two years, the agency collected between ₹4 lakh and ₹6 lakh per applicant, dangling high-paying positions that never materialized. The visas never arrived. When anxious applicants repeatedly demanded their money back, the agency's operators met them with verbal threats and stone silence before shuttering the office completely.
Victims soon mobbed local precincts. Anchalummoodu Police registered at least 24 distinct fraud cases against Lopez and the agency's management as the scope of the swindle became apparent.
The agency collected substantial sums from job seekers over two years without securing single foreign placement, then threatened victims when refunds were sought.
Anchalummoodu Police Officer
Investigators are now zeroing in on the wider network run by Ezra Global Tours and Travels, which operated multiple branch offices across Kerala and neighboring Tamil Nadu. Detectives suspect that dozens of additional victims have yet to come forward to register formal complaints.
Police escorted Lopez back to Kollam following her apprehension in Chhattisgarh. Officers submitted her to a mandatory medical examination before producing her before a local magistrate. The court remanded her to judicial custody.
| Case Parameter | Official Status |
|---|---|
| Accused Entity | Mary Lopez, Director, Ezra Global Tours and Travels |
| Operational Base | Neeravil, Kollam (Branches in Kerala and Tamil Nadu) |
| Total Defrauded Amount | ₹1.63 Crore |
| Target Destinations | Israel, Australia, and the Netherlands |
| Registered Cases | 24 FIRs at Anchalummoodu Police Station |
| Custodial Status | Remanded to Judicial Custody |
Detectives from the Anchalummoodu station are preparing formal applications to secure police custody of Lopez for custodial interrogation, seeking to track the financial trail of the ₹1.63 crore and identify absconding accomplices tied to the agency's regional branches.