Hyderabad: A sleuth of Malkajgiri zone’s Special Operations team along with Ghatsekar police apprehended two impersonators who cheated government officials by posing as Srinivas, the personal secretary of MA & UD Minister KT Rama Rao. They conned many government and private officials out of lakhs of rupees under this pretence.
These two con men were identified as Karthikeya and Fredric.
According to the police, via phone, both of these fraudsters were imploring government authorities to lend money. Through such deception, they collected lakhs of rupees. The police have seized a fake letter of credit issued from Chief Minister’s office, Rs 1.75 lakh and three mobile phones from their possession.
After a complaint registered at Ghatkesar police station, a case was registered under the section: 420, 471 of IPC.
Police said that Karthikeya, a chartered accountant, and Fredric, a mechanical engineer, are friends who reside in Secunderabad. While working for private companies, Karthikeya looked after project reports and financial modules of organizations that were looking to procure government approvals. Due to official work, for which he used to visit the secretariat and meet officials, he gathered information about personal secretaries who worked for KTR’s office.
Karthikeya started presenting himself to others as the personal secretary to KTR, when calling Government officials and private offices and ordering the concerned official to do the needful immediately. Karthikeya friend’s, Fredric, used to accompany him while impersonating as Srinivas.
In one case, Karthikeya contacted Sriramula Raju, an administrative officer working in a college, to arrange for admission while telling him that the minister would also visit the college soon. He then went to the college and collected Rs. 90,000 from Raju. The perpetrator downloaded the documents issued from the Chief Minister’s Office through the internet to manipulate Raju.
Later, the administrative officer contacted the suspect believing him to be Srinivas. Raju requested help in getting treatment for his son under a government scheme. The accused Karthikeya promised Raju to arrange a Letter of Credit (LOC) for Rs. 2, 00,000 towards medical expenses. The duo gave a fake LOC, supposedly from the Chief Minister’s Office to Sriramula Raju. He then submitted it to the hospital and got the treatment done.
Later, when the hospital authorities found the letter to be fake, they immediately informed Raju. Raju, in turn, tried contacting Karthikeya, but there was no response.
On December 6th, Raju approached Ghatkesar police station and lodged a complaint after which a case was registered. After the interrogation, both the perpetrators confessed that they contacted numerous government and private officials posing as KTR’s private secretary to collect lakhs of rupees.