6 more arrested in Telugu Academy FD fraud case; total 10 arrests

Six more persons including the mastermind in the Telugu Academy Fixed Deposit funds fraud case worth crores of rupees were arrested on Wednesday on the charge of misappropriation of Fixed Deposit funds of the Telugu Academy, police said.

Addressing a press conference here, Anjani Kumar, Police Commissioner of Hyderabad said the mastermind Sai Kumar had a history of committing similar frauds and was involved in three such cases previously.

These include Andhra Pradesh Minority Welfare Society withdrawal of FDRs (2012) investigated by CID, the Andhra Pradesh Housing Board Scam of nearly Rs 6 crore (2015) investigated by CBI and the Rs 25 crore FDR fraud of Northern Coalfields in Chennai investigated by CBI.

Among those arrested today include Ramesh, an accounts officer at Telugu Academy, N Venkata Raman, Venkateshwar Rao alias Dr Venkat and Somashekhar.Hyderabad police commissioner said that Sai Kumar's associate Venkat Raman who has also arrested in the case was also a co-accused in the 2012 AP Minority Welfare Society withdrawal of FDRs case.

Sai Kumar, had incurred debt due to certain investments in real estate and since he was acquainted with the modalities of FDR withdrawals, he contacted one of his friends who was an agent working in the field of bank deposits and loans, who introduced him to one Ramesh, an accounts officer of the Telugu Academy who he said he would arrange fixed deposits for Sai Kumar.

Police said that whenever Telugu Academy was required to create a Fixed Deposit, Sai Kumar would be contacted through the agent and he would send Venkat or Somashekar to collect the cheque from Accounts Officer Ramesh.

After the cheque and request letters were collected, Venkat Ramana and Sai Kumar, with the help of their associates, would create fake FDRs and fake request letters, which would be sent to the bank with the different amounts and time periods for the Fixed Deposits.

The fake FDRs would be printed and sent back to the Telugu Academy, the police official said.

The police commissioner further stated that the fake FDRs were again created for withdrawal of Fixed Deposit amounts from the bank concerned and this would be sent to the bank managers concerned.

The withdrawals would be done in favour of the AP Merchantile Co-operative Credit Society where the society would withdraw the amount in cash and this cash would be collected by either Somashekar or Venkat.

"All the associated persons shared the misappropriated amount depending on their role. The largest share was that of Saikumar and Somashekar," the police commissioner said.

A team led by ACP Manoj Kumar and five other teams of CCS are part of the investigation, the Commissioner.

So far four accused, Shaik Mastanvali, Satyanarayana, V. Padmavathi, Syed Moinuddin have been arrested.

( With inputs from ANI )

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