Fraudster Held For Cheating Municipal Chairpersons

The Commissioner's Task Force personnel today nabbed a habitual fraudster, Thota Balaji Naidu alias Naidu, who cheated and extorted money from municipal chairpersons by impersonating the MA & UD Principal Secretary.

According to the Deputy Commissioner of Police, the accused posed as the MA & UD Principal Secretary in the office of the Municipal Affairs minister and informed the Municipal Chairmen of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh over the phone that the Centre had sanctioned several crore rupees for the municipalities under various schemes, and that he would release the amounts if they paid him money.

Naidu was a dismissed NTPC employee of Nazaarpeta, Tenali, Guntur district, and is an accused in 32 cheating cases in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. He has allegedly cheated many public representatives since 2008, has been arrested by 14 police stations in Andhra Pradesh, has four cheating cases against him in Hyderabad and Cyberabad.

The Hyderabad Police had invoked the PD Act against Naidu in January 2016, and had lodged him in the Chanchalguda jail. After the expiry of the detention under the PD Act, he was released from jail in January of last year. After the release, he committed similar offences in Jubilee Hills, Kamalapuram (Kadapa district), Ananthapur, Proddutur, Hindupur, Tirupati, Chilamathur town, Dhone and Lepakshi (Anantapur district), and has also been involved in cyber crimes. He was arrested and released even in September of this year.

On a tip-off, the Commissioner's Task Force Central Zone apprehended the accused today and handed him over to the Suryapet II Town police station. He has been remanded to judicial custody.