Hyderabad: A gang has been arrested for manipulating fuel dispensing machines of different petrol bunks in the city at the request of the owners.
Police said that the gang had installed specially designed chips in the dispensing machines of as many as 70 petrol bunks in the state and 10 fueling stations in city, taking lakhs of rupees from the bunk owners.
The scam was uncovered when a Special Operation Team from Cyberabad trapped the gang, which include petrol pump mechanics from Mumbai and Vijayawada.
Police has seized Rs 10 lakh worth of software, hard disks and ICs (chips). Cyberabad police will also take action against the petrol bunk owners.
The SOT team nabbed the gang following an order from Cyberabad Commissioner of Police C.V. Anand.
According to the SOT chief, K. Govardhan Reddy, once the chips were installed in the fuel dispensing machines, the count on the display boards of the machines showed different readings.
If a customer filled 10 litres of fuel, the display board would show the same while the actual amount of fuel dispensed would be less. For every 50 litres, the petrol bunk owners saved up to three-four liters this way.
“The bunk owners paid Rs 30,000 to Rs 40,000 to get the chip installed in their filling stations. For many months they cheated customers with the tampered filling machine boards and earned lakhs of rupees illegally,” said Govardhan Reddy, adding that cases for cheating and under other IPC Sections had been booked against the bunk owners.
The police is yet to calculate how much money is actually involved in the scam.
Officials suspect that it will run into crores since 70 petrol bunks in state have been operating with the manipulated machines for many months.
Police officials said that the kingpin of the gang, Shibu K. Thomas, a native of Kerala settled in Mumbai and a mechanic at Hindustan Petroleum Ltd., had knowledge about the software of the fuel dispensing machines.
“He developed a software which lessened the delivery of fuel from fuel dispensing machines against the actual (original) figure on the display meter. He purchased the main chips that are installed in the machine and manipulated them with the software,” said SOT officials.
The other gang members came into contact with him and bought the chips and started installing them in different petrol bunks in the state for money. The gang members would approach bunk owners secretly and offer the service, said officials.
When SOT arrested the gang, they had 600 more chips, which was ready to be installed in other bunks.
