A Bellary-based jeweller converted gold into cash for the associates of mining baron Gali Janardhan Reddy to pool up Rs 9.50 crore to strike a cash-for-bail deal.
The ACB said in its second chargesheet filed recently that it could not have been easy for the three accused in the case -MLAs Gali Somasekhara Reddy (Bellary Urban) and TH Suresh Babu (Kampli), and businessman G Dasarathrami Reddy to pool up Rs 9.50 crore without the tacit acceptance and knowledge of Janardhan Reddy. All the three are close aides of Janardhan Reddy, accused no 9 in the case.
Suresh Babu utilised the services of S Ramesh, a jeweller at Bellary to get the money. “Eleven kilos of gold bars each weighing 1 kg, was handed over to Ramesh by Suresh Babu at Janardhan Reddy’s house on May 7 to convert them into cash and hand over the cash to Suresh Babu at Hyderabad. The cash was for making payment in case the deal of grant of bail to Janardhan Reddy is fructified,’’ the ACB said.
Ramesh contacted two gold merchants in the city, Chetan Agarwal and Rahul Agarwal, and asked them to arrange buyers. The duo contacted Deepak Agarwal and Ramesh Kumar Agarwal, owners of Manokamna Gold at Langer Houz and informed them about the sale of 10 kg of gold.
“Ramesh Kumar Agarwal agreed to purchase 6 kg gold on condition that the rate of gold is finalised immediately and an amount of Rs 3 lakh is paid towards guarantee for speculation losses. Chetan and Rahul Agarwal agreed to the condition and paid Rs 3 lakh to Ramesh Kumar and the rate was finalised at Rs 29.17 lakh per kilo.’’
On May 10, Ramesh came to the city and handed over six gold bars to Chetan and asked him to convert gold into cash immediately. Chetan sold the bars at Manokamna Gold and collected Rs 1.75 crore and handed over the same to Ramesh on the same day. Chetan got Rs 50,000 as commission.
The remaining 5-kg gold was given to Rahul who sold it for Rs 1.40 crore to his friend Pramod Bung at Himayatnagar. Rahul was paid a commission of Rs 45,000. On the instructions of Suresh Babu, Ramesh handed over Rs 1.75 crore to Chaitanya at Shantinagar the same day.
Chaitanya took the cash bags to Room No 4 of Shantinagar Club. On the instructions of Somasekhara Reddy, his gunman MG Natraj and another person Sunil Reddy stayed in the room at the club while another gunman of Somasekhara Reddy, S Somasekhara, waited outside throughout the night.
“From 9 pm onwards on the day, Somasekhara Reddy, Dasarathrami Reddy and Suresh Babu had a meeting in front of the Shantinagar Club building and it was attended by another accused, P Yadagiri Rao, who allegedly brokered the bail deal.
The next day, the remaining Rs 1.40 crore was collected by Chaitanya’s friend Shekhar and his gunman K Basvaraj near Minerva Hotel, Himayatnagar. Chaitanya took the money to Hotel Daspalla in Jubilee Hills.
Soon after the pronouncement of bail order on May 11, the cash kept at Shantinagar Club was shifted to Daspalla Hotel in three bags.