📰 From the news · Overcharged / hidden fees
"Student coordinator, hostel free": the Hyderabad agents booked over a Kyrgyzstan seat — and the fake police call that followed the refund request
Kyrgyzstan sells itself as the affordable option — "easier admissions than Russia", low fees, English-medium programmes — and it has real universities that graduate thousands of foreign doctors. It also has an agent layer that the Indian embassy in Bishkek warns about in plain words. A case registered by Chaitanyapuri police in Hyderabad shows what the warning is about.
According to Hyderabad Mail, the complainant, a student from Hyderabad, was promised admission at the University of South Asia in Kyrgyzstan by an agent named in the report as Guraka Hemanth Reddy, working with a consultancy called New Wave Students Consultancy. He paid ₹3.75 lakh in total, ₹3.25 lakh of it directly to the agent by Google Pay. The pitch included a detail that made the deal feel special: he would be made a "student coordinator", which would waive roughly $200 a month in hostel and mess fees for the length of the 5½-year course.
He flew out on 20 September 2025 with 51 other students. None of the promised benefits existed, the report says; unexpected costs mounted; when he asked questions, the consultancy's owner said the ₹3.25 lakh had never reached the consultancy, and the agent refused to explain. With the university's management helping, he returned to India. Then came the pressure: a caller posing as a sub-inspector from Visakhapatnam told him the Kyrgyz embassy and the consultancy had filed "international complaints" and that he must appear in person. Police registered a case for cheating, criminal breach of trust and criminal intimidation; the accused are entitled to the presumption of innocence.
Three things stand out. The money went to an individual's payment app, not to a university account — which is why the consultancy could later disown it. The "free hostel for being a coordinator" was a bespoke promise, unverifiable by design, that created the value in the deal. And the fake police call is a pattern we have now seen from Ghaziabad to Aachen: once a victim asks for a refund, intimidation replaces persuasion.
The Embassy of India in Bishkek's advisory says the same things in official language: "self-styled contractors" advertise exaggerated information; students must get the real costs of tuition, boarding and lodging from the institution itself and cross-check any agent's figures; certificates must be apostilled by the Ministry of External Affairs before admission; NEET is mandatory for anyone who wants to practise in India afterwards; students must register on the MADAD portal on arrival; and — a line worth memorising — keep your passport and testimonials in your own custody and never surrender them to a contractor.
Were you affected by this case, or something like it? Report it with your own evidence, or tell your story — first-person accounts are what stop the next family.
This is a news-sourced case summary written by the TrustMBBS team, not a first-person account; see the sources above. They reflect one person's experience and are not a verdict on any institution. Report your own: Report a scam or tell your story.