Hyderabad: A postgraduate student reportedly duped around 150 persons and siphoned off Rs 2 crore from them in a span of two years. The accused, M. Srinivas Rao of Tuni in Andhra Pradesh, took to crime after he failed to get a job, police said.
Srinivas completed his M.Tech in 2016 from a city college. The same year, he was arrested by the Kakinada police for cheating the public on the pretext of providing matrimonial services. After getting bail, he moved to Hyderabad in 2017 and was staying at Amberpet.
Hyderabad police commissioner Anjani Kumar said that to execute the plan, Srinivas placed advertisements in regional newspapers on work-from-home opportunities, jobs abroad and offered to secure loans. If any person responded to the advertisements, he collected their bank account details and made transactions under various pretexts by securing the OTPs.
Srinivas transferred the money into e-wallets and then to his bank accounts and withdrew the cash, Mr Kumar said.
Task force sleuths who have verified footage captured on over 600 CCTV cameras identified Srinivas and apprehended him at Amberpet, tracking him down using his mobile phone signal. The team recovered Rs 11 lakh cash, 12 phones, 29 SIM cards, a laptop, a bike and three debit cards from the accused.
“In the last two years, Srinivas cheated around 150 persons to the tune of Rs 2 crore. He always communicated with the victims through Whatsapp calls and used to wear a cap and handkerchief covering his face, to keep from being identified while roaming around.” Currently, Srinivas is wanted in 20 cases from 2018, the commissioner said.
