HYDERABAD: A Kondapur-based techie defrauded 13 of his colleagues and their family members to the tune of Rs 6.12 crore by promising them gold at lower rates. Cyberabad’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW) busted the fraud racket and arrested the accused, Ganta Sreedhar, 40, on charges of cheating and criminal breach of trust.
Sreedhar’s scam came to light after a 62-year-old businessman, Narender Reddy, who lost Rs 1.48 crore in the fraud, complained to the police.
According to Narender, Sreedhar worked in a private company at Madhapur for over 12 years and gained the confidence of his colleagues and their family members over the time. Narender got acquainted with Sreedhar at an office party in 2018 and ever since, they have been regularly in contact with each other.
Although Sreedhar kept telling Narender about receiving high returns on investing in gold and land, he never wanted to invest in these schemes. However, after seeing the rate of gold increase rapidly in recent times, Narender and his wife wanted to invest in Sreedhar’s scheme.
Immediately, Sreedhar shared a message informing them that if they were going to send money through online bank transactions to either of the two jewellery stores he mentioned, they would get gold at the rate of Rs 5,950 per gram on purchase of gold between 100 and 200 grams and at Rs 5,850 per gram on purchase of 300-500 gm of gold. Sreedhar promised them that their purchased gold would be delivered to them in 25 (+/-) 2 days.
However, when the victims started approaching Sreedhar for their gold, he promised to deliver it to them on March 22. But he left the city claiming there was a land issue that he needed to resolve at Tirupati. Thereafter, the victims found that he had vacated his house and switched off his phone.
In his official complaint, Narender claimed that there could be more victims to the investment scheme. The EOW police have arrested Sreedhar and are investigating the case for further details.