Two siblings charged with stealing cash and jewellery from families after inviting them to upmarket resorts for fixing marriage alliances and offering drinks laced with sedatives were caught by the Hyderabad police on Friday.
The arrested men, A. Ravi Kumar Reddy, 31, and A. Chandrakumar Reddy, 21, took 12 families for a ride in this fashion for the past few years in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Maharashtra, Puducherry, and Andhra Pradesh. A kilo of stolen gold ornaments and four cars -- all worth Rs. 50 lakh -- were seized from them, city Police Commissioner, A.K. Khan, told a press conference.
The duo, along with their associate, Ramesh Naidu, used to collect details of families looking for brides by browsing matrimonial websites. They would also give ads in newspapers claiming to be a rich family searching for well-settled bridegrooms. “All their claims were false. The photographs of ‘brides' they would mail to their targets would be those of beautiful women downloaded from matrimonial websites,” Mr. Khan said. The duo created emails with names, addresses and got registered with different websites offering marriage bureau services. One of the accused would speak with the family members of the prospective bridegrooms over phone and invite them to cities like Bangalore and Mumbai. They would impress the families by arranging conveyance when the latter would arrive at the railway or bus stations and provide accommodation in upmarket resorts or service apartments. Without divulging any details about them, the duo would impress the ‘bridegroom party', offering them multi-cuisine food, etc. Not arousing suspicion of anyone, the gang would offer soft drinks mixed with sleeping pills.
“When the family members would fall unconscious, they would collect their jewellery, cash and valuables and disappear,” the Central Crime Station DCP, J. Satyanarayana, said. The gang used to book resorts online by making short advance payments and evade the remaining charges. The siblings were allegedly involved in a case of kidnap for ransom eight years ago in Kadapa.
