Hyderabad: Six gang members who cheated 170 people by collecting money after promising them houses under the state government’s double bedroom scheme were arrested by Cyberabad police on Saturday. The police recovered Rs 1.11 crore and gold ornaments from the gang.
The police identified the accused as Velisetty Venkata Sathya Krishna Vara Prasad, Aduri Murali Krishna Murthy, Pal-akollu Srinivas Rao, Aela Laxmi, Nagalla Krishna Rao and K. Srinivas.
The racket was unravelled by a complaint lodged by one of the victims, Ms Busaraju Lalitha. She told the Dundigal police that she had paid the gang Rs 1.6 lakh but was not allotted a 2BHK house as promised. The police booked a case and investigated it for more than a month before carrying out the arrests.
Cyberabad police commissioner V.C. Sajjanar said that one of the accused, Aela Laxmi, runs a tiffin centre. She used to lure the customers who came to the eatery by showing fake allotment documents of 2BHK house. “If anyone believed it, she used to ask them to pay `1.5 lakh each and then introduce them to the other agents.”
Mr Sajjanar said the gang had collected Rs 2.25 crore from 170 persons. Investigations revealed that Vara Prasad started the scam after overhearing two persons discussing the 2BHK fake allotment letter scam. “He learnt the process to make documents,” Mr Sajjanar said.
He said Vara Prasad had built a house for himself with the loot.
