Fake education certificates racket busted in Hyderabad, 1 1 held

HYDERABAD: A gang of 11 members involved in preparing and circulating fake education certificates was busted by Cyberabad Special Operations Team (SOT) on Friday. The gang members, who have so far sold fake certificates to 100 gullible people, charged hefty amounts to supply the certificates, police said.
What stumped the SOT sleuths was the gang's mastery in preparation and procurement of fake certificates of 18 universities and SSC and Intermediate boards of 13 states. Cyberabad police commissioner Stephen Raveendra said the gang prepared the fake certificates using various software tools and supplied them to interested persons after collecting specified amounts.
Prime accused has been identified as K Kishore Kumar of Vijayawada in AP. Seventy fake certificates of degree, PG, B Tech, SSC and Intermediate courses were seized from the mobile phone of Kishore. Sleuths also recovered four fake stamps of universities, blank transfer certificates, logos of universities, recommendation letters, ATM cards and mobile phones from the accused.
Police launched a probe after a resident of KPHB colony, M Venkateshwar Rao, lodged a complaint how he was duped by the gang.
Rao came to Hyderabad three months ago and stayed in a hostel. During an interaction with hostel warden Krishna Kanth Reddy, Rao requested him to help him with a job based on his Intermediate qualification. Krishna Kanth advised Rao to meet his friend Bokka Venkateshwar Rao who, he said, would facilitate him in getting an original degree certificate and other certificates at a cost of Rs 90,000.
Rao duly paid the money. Bokka arranged the BCom degree certificate of Chaudhary Charan Singh University of Meerut in Uttar Pradesh through a courier for Rao. "But when Rao checked the certificates, they turned out to be fake," Raveendra said. Also, Rao found that his certificates were not part of the university records, police said.
Kishore, Krishna Kanth, Bokka and eight others were among those who were nabbed.