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Hyderabad police nab six connected to Telugu Academy fraud case
The police commissioner also said Sai Kumar, the mastermind in the racket, is a known offender, previously involved in similar financial scams in Andhra Pradesh and Chennai.
Hyderabad police on Wednesday arrested six more persons, including kingpin Chanduri Venkata Koti Sai Kumar, in the ₹64.5 crores Telugu Academy fixed deposit fraud case.
Apart from Sai Kumar, a city-based realtor, the others arrested in connection with the scam are administrative officer and in-charge accounts officer Segoori Ramesh, Canara Bank’s Chanda Nagar branch manager M Sadhana and realtors Nanduri Venkata Ramana from Tanuku in West Godavari, Venkateshwar Rao from Sathupallu in Khammam district and Somashekar alias Raj Kumar from Dharmavaram in Anantapur, the police said.
Hyderabad police commissioner Anjani Kumar told reporters that the accused had swindled, in all, ₹64.50 crore belonging to Telugu Academy, deposited in the form of 43 fixed deposits in various banks, including Karwan and Santosh Nagar branches of Union Bank of India and Chanda Nagar branch of Canara Bank.
“We could recover only a few lakhs from the arrested persons, as they had already spent most of the money by clearing their debts, investing in the real estate and on luxuries,” the police commissioner said.
The police commissioner also said Sai Kumar, the mastermind in the racket, is a known offender, previously involved in similar financial scams in Andhra Pradesh and Chennai, and was facing cases from the Crime Investigation Department of Andhra Pradesh and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
Anjani Kumar said Sai Kumar got in touch with Telugu Academy’s accounts officer Ramesh. Whenever the Telugu Academy planned to do fixed deposits, Sai Kumar would send his agents – Venkat Ramana and Somasekhar to collect the cheques from Ramesh and deposited the amount in the UBI and Canara Bank in the form of FDs for different amounts and different time periods.
Joint commissioner of police (detective department) Avinash Mohanty said the accused used to print duplicate FDs with the help of Shaik Mastanvali of UBI and Sadhana of Canara Bank, who would inform the accused about the FDR numbers.
Subsequently, the accused withdrew the FDs from these banks prematurely and transferred them into the accounts of AP Mercantile Co-Operative Credit Society in Agrasen Co-Operative Urban Bank Limited, a private bank, using these fake FD receipts. “From there, they withdrew the money in cash and swindled the same,” the joint police commissioner said.
The fake account of Telugu Academy in A P Merchantile Co-operative Society was created with the connivance of Satyanarayana using fake ID proofs. In the opening of the account, Somashekar posed himself as Director of Telugu Academy.
He said that the credit society got a commission of nearly ₹6 crore for parking the Academy’s money, and a majority of the share was taken by Sai Kumar, Ramesh and others.
“We are suspecting the role of nine others in the entire racket. Further investigation is on,” the police commissioner said.
