Retired IAS officer booked for duping NRI of Rs 4.3 crore

Hyderabad: Retired IAS officer Dayachari Ponnekanti has been booked by the Hyderabad Central Crime Station (CCS) for allegedly duping an NRI of Rs 4.3 crores by luring him into fake business ventures.

The complainant, Kommineni Kalyana, a 59-year-old resident of New Jersey, US, stated that he was first introduced to Ponnekanti through common contacts while the officer was working for the Tobacco Board in Guntur.

The complainant alleges that in February 2015, Ponnekanti approached him in the US and asked him to invest in the establishment of a hospital named “Kugler” in Guntur. Then, later in March that same year, he was asked to invest in a sand supply contract with a Singapore company and a long-term LPG supply contract with the Indian Oil Corporation (IOCL).

Trusting his credentials as a civil servant, the complainant agreed to invest around Rs 4.3 crore and transferred the amount to a company called APIND Financial Services Pvt. Ltd. However, he later learnt that the company bearing the address of Prashasan Nagar in Jubilee Hills was the residence of Ponnekanti.

When Kalyana finally visited India to see the progress of the business ventures after a lack of communication from Ponnekanti, he discovered that the officer had been collecting large sums of money from various individuals under similar pretences.

It was also found that Ponnekanti had purchased immovable assets in Guntur and other locations, after which Kalyana decided to visit regarding the Indian Oil Corporation the LPG deal.

However, it was discovered that IOCL had no record of the deal, thus confirming that the purchase order shown by Ponnekanti was a fake.

A case has been registered against Ponnekanti and his company, APIND Financial Services Pvt. Ltd., for cheating and criminal breach of trust.