Fraudster cheats engg. college director, collects Rs 12 lakh
Hyderabad: Director of Nalla Malla Reddy Engineering College Divya Nalla filed a complaint with the police against a fraudster who collected money from her with the pretext of completing a few research projects. Posing as a teaching faculty, the fraudster took the names of several professors and alumni from various colleges and collected approximately `7.8 lakh from her as the “processing fees”.
According to the complainant, the complaint introduced himself as a faculty member of BITS-Pilani Hyderabad to a professor from JNTUH and told him that he was looking for a co-investigator for a project (Co-PI)and the professor shared the director’s number. “He said he had a project sanctioned by the Department of Science and Technology (DST). The existing Co-PI left for the National University of Singapore and he was looking for another Co-PI. He further said that a staff member at DST would change the Co-Pl name only if he could give him `3.25 lakh. Later he said the person was asking for `50,000 more. He also forwarded the messages from that supposed to be DST staff,” she complained.
Similarly, the fraudster claimed that he had two other projects and collected another `8.25 lakh “processing fee” for those projects. However, later he claimed that he met with an accident and lost touch with his DST contacts. When the director went to the BITS-Pilani Hyderabad campus to question the professor, she came to know that the professor in question was not aware of any of the payments and his name was misused by the fraudster. Medipally police registered a case under BNS sections for criminal breach of trust and cheating and launched a probe.
( Source : Deccan Chronicle )
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