HYDERABAD: Having suffered losses in their construction business, three men from Hyderabad hatched a plan to extort money. Conniving with a few officials working at the Commercial Tax Office, they decided to target and take advantage of corrupt government officials. Impersonating Anti-Corruption Bureau officials, the trio is suspected to have extorted up to Rs 20 lakh from various officials over a span of six months.
The ACB sleuths, real ones this time, laid a trap for their impostors on Tuesday.
The fraudsters had called a senior assistant working with commercial tax office R Yadaiah demanding Rs 1 lakh bribe. Probe revealed that Vemula Sriknath alias Krishnakanth (26), Galeebu Nageshwar Rao (27), and Rajamahendrapu Krishna (30) incurred huge losses after they started Neelima Constructions company a year ago. The only asset left with them at the end of the venture was the knowledge of how CTO officials function. They themselves had bribed some CTO officials and hatched a plan to extort money from the same office.
They started another company, in another name. They visited CTO frequently under the pretext of paying taxes. While two of them would interact with officials and given them money, sometimes forcibly, for successful completion of works, the third person would secretly record all of it on his mobile phone.
After a few days the third accused would call on the official who took money posing as ACB official. He would then threaten the official with arrest and suspension unless he paid money. In this manner, the trio is suspected to have tricked 14 officials, 14 different times. Yadaiah was the first one to come out and complain to ACB.