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Hyderabad: Cheat who duped legislators held

Police said the accused, Thota Balaji Naidu, 40, faces at least 60 cheating cases in the two Telugu speaking states.

Hyderabad: A fraudster impersonating an employee of the Secretariat and cheating public representatives under the guise of providing them loans and benefits from other schemes was arrested by the cyber crime police of Hyderabad.

Police said the accused, Thota Balaji Naidu, 40, faces at least 60 cheating cases in the two Telugu speaking states. His alleged victims include Musheerabad legislator Muta Gopal and Bhadra-chalam former legislator Kunja Satyavathi. He is reportedly out on bail.

According to the police, Naidu completed his engineering and worked as an assistant engineer with the NTPC. After a while he started cheating people while posing as a deputy secretary of the finance department and taking money to ostensibly secure loans.

Additional deputy commissioner of police, cybercrime K.C.S. Raghu Vir said, “He would collect the phone numbers of public representatives from the party offices and legislature offices. He would impersonate a finance deputy secretary and lure people stating that central government funds in crores has been sanctioned for their constituency under the Prime Minister Emplo-yment Generation Progr-amme (PMEGP). The accused collects an initial deposit of 5 per cent of the desired loan amount through online transfers”.

In one of the cases, Naidu approached Mush-eerabad MLA Muta Gopal by posing as an employee from the Secretariat. He told the legislator about the PMEGP scheme, which would give beneficiaries money to set up new businesses. He said the applications have to be filled online and provided with necessary documents, and an initial deposit needed to be paid.

Believing his words, the MLA transferred an amount of around `2.5 lakh. When he got no response, Mr Gopal sent hsi associates to the Secretariat. There it became clear that he had been cheated.

Police said Naidu cheated Ms Kunja Sathyavathi in a similar manner. A team headed by inspector G. Venkata Rami Reddy cracked the case and arrested the accused at Puducherry on Sunday.

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