Hyderabad: Currency deal turns murky

HYDERABAD: A city-based businessman was looted reportedly at gunpoint by a suspect, on the Outer Ring Road at Narsingi. He was given a bundle of white papers in exchange of for 30,000 US dollars. The fraudster gave a bundle of white papers with one original note of Rs 2,000 on the front of the bundle, said the Cyberabad police. The incident took place on the outskirts of the city on the outer ring road on Thursday evening, when Md Jaffer of Mirchowk in the Old City, wanted to exchange dollars with Indian currency to get profits.

Madhapur additional commissioner of police N. Shyam Prasad Rao said the victim, Jaffer, is into illegal currency exchange at Pathar Ghatti in the Old City, was duped by a person, who hailed from Vijayawada. “On Thursday evening, the suspect identified as Ahmed called Jaffer and picked him in his car on the pretext of arranging the Indian currency of '20 lakh in exchange for 30,000 US dollars. After reaching the ORR, Ahmed gave a bundle wrapped in a paper to Jaffer telling that it contained '20 lakh, and took the dollars from the latter. When Jaffer tried to open the cover and the money, Ahmed reportedly pulled out a gun and pointed at Jaffer and threatened him to not count it, and pushed him out of the car,” said ACP Shyam Prasad Rao.

The ACP said that, based on the descriptions of the car and the suspect provided by Jaffer, police teams are verifying the footage of the CCTV cameras installed on the outer ring road and the entry and exit points. Sources said that the suspect had earlier successfully transacted a currency exchange to take Jaffer into confidence. They have exchanged 15,000 dollars in the last 14 days, including the last one on Wednesday at Attapur, where Ahmed gave '2,700 to Jaffer in exchange.