HYDERABAD : The Task Force, Central Zone team of Hyderabad, busted a fingerprint cloning racket involving two Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) Sanitation Field Assistants. The accused, P Shivaiah Umesh (40) and J Shivaram (40), were apprehended for allegedly falsely claiming salaries on behalf of absent sanitation workers by using cloned fingerprints.
The accused, who supervised sanitation workers under Circle-XVI, Amberpet division, were entrusted with biometric attendance devices to mark daily attendance. They devised a plan to exploit this system by collecting thumb impressions. The duo obtained thumb impressions from 35 sanitation workers — 21 under Umesh and 14 under Shivaram — with the promise of sharing the illegally claimed wages.
The workers were made to press their thumbs on candle wax and then the accused used M-Seal, Fevicol to create replicas of the fingerprints. The cloned fingerprints were then used on the biometric devices to mark attendance for absent workers.
The accused confessed to carrying out this practice for two years, claiming salaries for as many as 20 absent workers per shift. This resulted in a monthly loss of approximately Rs 3,60,000 to the GHMC, amounting to a total of Rs 86,40,000 over the two years.
The accused along with 35 synthetic fingerprints and two biometric devices, were handed over to the Amberpet Police Station and a case has been registered under various sections of the IPC.