HYDERABAD: There is no dearth of the gullible if one is smart enough. BTech graduate Vamsi Krishna managed to swindle about Rs 5 crore by creating a make-believe world for well-off girls on Instagram by using Yanam MLA Gollapalli Srinivas Ashok’s photograph and pretending to be close to the politician.
Hyderabad cyber crime police interrogated Vamsi Krishna for three days after a victim lodged a complaint with them that she had been tricked into paying the conman Rs 25 lakh. He is now in jail and is trying to obtain bail. He is accused in 17 cases in both Telugu states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
An engineering graduate from Rajahmundry in AP, Vamsi Krishna knew his way around with girls on Instagram. He used the pictures of the Yanam MLA to convince them that he was close to Srinivas Ashok and flashed pictures of luxury and fancy cars belonging to the MLA convincing the women that they too could get into the automobile business.
Hyderabad police came to know about his shenanigans when a girl who lives in the United States contacted them stating how she lost Rs 25 lakh. The victims narrated the modus operandi of Vamsi Krishna and how he used to inveigle the unsuspecting girls. Now, the police have reason to believe that he conned about 60 Instagrammers spread across the country.
According to police, the accused used MLA Srinivas Ashok’s pictures for creating four accounts on Instagram, one in the name of Harsh and three others in the name of young girls and created a group. He introduced himself as an acquaintance of the MLA and made a show that he could connect them to the MLA if they were looking to invest their money in business and did not know which one. After adding girls from well-off families to the group he had created on Instagram, he began chatting with the girls in all the four accounts who thought he was genuinely trying to help them.
As far as the Hyderabad victim is concerned, Vamsi Krishna made her believe that he has some companies and that he was interested in hiring her at a salary of Rs 3 lakh per month. He asked her to quit her job in the US and return to India. Then he began telling her that he was doing some charity work on her name and asked her to send him Rs 5 lakh to support the activity, which she did. He later told her that his bank account was frozen and that he was in dire need of Rs 20 lakh. As she was in the US, she asked her father to give him the money.
FIRST ARRESTED IN 2017
He was first arrested in 2017 and the second time in January 2022. There are case against him in East Godavari, West Godavari, Rachakonda, Hyderabad, Cyeberabad, Vizag, Karimnagar, Vijayawada, Khammam, Nizamabad and other places in the Telugu States.