Six held for cheating 170 people who wanted Telangana govt's two-bedroom flats

HYDERABAD:  Cyberabad police on Saturday arrested a six-member gang which cheated 170 people in different parts of the city under the pretext of arranging flats in the Telangana government’s double-bedroom scheme.

The gang led by Velishetty Venkata Satya Krishna Vara Prasad collected more than Rs 2 crore from the victims and even issued them letters informing that flats were allocated to them in the projects that have come up at Dundigal and surrounding areas, said police.

Cyberabad police commissioner VC Sajjanar appealed to the public to not to trust any person coming up with such proposals. According to police, Venkata Sathya Krishna Vara Prasad conceived this idea when he was in a bar, in 2018.

He overheard two persons discussing allocation of two-bedroom flats on a commission basis. Vara Prasad gathered some information from them and even clicked the picture of an allotment letter they had.

He later used it for cooking up fake letters. Along with his father-in-law Aduri Murali Krishna Murthy, he started hunting for people willing to shell out money for the flats. Through another accused Aela Laxmi, who runs a hotel, they implemented their plan. Laxmi would show the flat allotment letter to her customers. People soon started approaching them for flats and paid around Rs 1.60 lakh each since December, 2018.

The other accused collected their commission and gave the balance to kingpin Vara Prasad, as he told them that he had contacts in the Secretariat. He also issued flat allocation letters to all victims and told them that they could occupy the flats after verification. However, the verification never came through and the victims approached police. Police arrested the six and seized property worth Rs 1.21 crore.

Accused Vara Prasad invested booty in land
Kingpin Velishetty Venkata Satya Krishna Vara Prasad was into several businesses in the past. But after he incurred losses, he came up with the idea of making easy money by cheating others. From the money earned by cheating people, he purchased open plots in prime areas in Andhra Pradesh. He had also purchased two SUVs with this money. While he took the major share of the money i.e, Rs 1.30 crore, his father-in-law Aduri Murali Krishna Murthy took Rs 52 lakh and other members of the gang shared the balance amount.