Thirteen persons, including eight petrol pump owners, who were involved in tampering with fuel-dispensing machines at various petrol stations in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, were arrested by the Cyberabad police on Saturday. They were found to be using electronic chips to manipulate the discharge of fuel in a manner that less fuel was dispensed than what was shown on the display and receipt. Seven more people involved in the racket are absconding.

In a joint operation, the police of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, along with Controller of Legal Metrology of both States, raided several fuel outlets and seized 11 fuel stations in Telangana and 22 in Andhra Pradesh.

Cyberabad Commissioner of Police V.C. Sajjanar said that with the inputs shared by the Telangana police, their counterparts in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh arrested 19 fuel station owners. They were causing loss running to crores of rupees to consumers by delivering less fuel.

Mr. Sajjanar said that for every 1,000 ml of fuel, the customers would actually get 20-30 ml of fuel less. Thus, fuel station owners earned huge profits in fraudulent manner.

The Special Operations Team of Cyberabad and Nandigama police of Andhra Pradesh nabbed nter-State accused Shaik Subhani Basha and seized 14 chips, eight displays, three GBR cables, a motherboard and a car. “These ICs were found installed in the fuel-dispensing machines at the seized outlets,” he said.

Mr. Sajjanar said Subhani Basha (32) from Eluru and his associates Shaik Baji Baba, Madasuguri Shankar and Ippili Malleshwar Rao, all from Eluru, had procured and installed the chips at outlets.

The gang would charge between ₹80,000 and ₹1.20 lakh for installing each programmed chip.

After purchasing manipulated chips and software, Subhani Basha had started programming and installation in AP and Telangana through mediators in connivance with fuel station owners, he said.

“The fraudsters used to install the chips only in one fuel pump out of two. For filling fuel in vehicles, directly manipulated pumps were used, while regular pumps were used to fill in plastic bottles and cans so that the customers cannot notice the fraud,” the Commissioner said.

In 2018, new software was installed in all fuel stations across the country. The gang began its operations last year.

To prevent such large-scale cheating and irregularities, fuel corporations were alerted.

“This cheating cannot be detected by every consumer. The vigilance teams which visit these fuel stations regularly must check for such chips. They have been advised to measure the fuel manually during surprise visits,” Mr. Sajjanar said.

He said the busting was done under the guidance of Shamshabad DCP N.Prakash Reddy and SOT Additional DCP G. Sundeep.