GUNTUR: Guntur police arrested the manager and two directors of an education consultancy company for duping students.
According to police, the complainant, S Srinivasa Rao from Gurazala village in Palnadu, wanted to enrol his son Anil Kumar to a medical college in Philippines. When Rao was trying to find a consultancy firm, K Ravi Teja, founder of Right Choice JS Professional Educational Services Private Limited, contacted him and promised to help with the visa and admission formalities to enrol Anil into a college in the Philippines and collected Rs 21.59 lakh from him.
Subsequently, Anil left for the Philippines and joined college. However, his family later found out that the consultancy firm had not paid the college fees. When Rao questioned Ravi Teja about the same, the latter threatened Anil by telling him that he would not return his passport.
Following this, Rao approached the Vattichekuru police and lodged a complaint. A case was filed and an investigation was launched on the instructions of SP Sathish Kumar.
The police identified that as many as seven people -- K Bala Ravi Teja, K Bala Shouraiah, P Lohitha, P Ravi Kumar, residents of Guntur and NTR districts, and M Geethika, Narayana Pawan Kalyan, and P Siva, who live in Philippines -- were involved in the scam. The accused would identify MBBS aspirants and manipulate them into paying huge amounts of money under the pretext of collecting college fees. When the students demand answers regarding their unpaid fees, the accused would threaten to not return their passports.
The police arrested Ravi Teja, Shouraiah, and Ravi Kumar at Mutluru village on Wednesday. They also seized a laptop, three mobile phones used at the consultancy firm and a passport from the them.
Speaking on the occasion, Guntur South DSP Mallikarjuna Rao said the other four accused are in Philippines and asserted that legal action will be taken against them.