A gang of four operating a fake educational certificate racket and seven employees of different pharmaceutical companies who had purchased such certificates from them, were arrested by the police on Thursday.
A former employee of Granules India, B. Shankar Rao — hailing from Vizianagaram and settled in city — was the kingpin of the racket, Cyberabad DCP, Crimes, S. Ranga Reddy, said at a press conference. He joined hands with S. Gouri Naidu and P. Ramakrishna, both from Visakhapatnam, who were already making and selling fake certificates. Two others, Hussain and Ramchander, also helped them in the racket.
The duo was earlier arrested by Gajuwaka police five years ago on a similar charge and came out on bail.
“Pharma companies promote unskilled workers with long service if the latter improve their educational qualifications. Workers who studied up to tenth or Intermediate standards approached Rao seeking degree, polytechnic or other course certificates,” the police said.
Rao used to purchase fake certificates from Naidu and Ramakrishna and sell them to others. On a tip-off, the Balanagar CCS Inspector V. Yadagiri Reddy caught Rao, Naidu, Ramchander and Hassain, while Ramakrishna is still at large.
Based on their confession, employees of pharmaceutical companies V. Prabhakar Reddy and P. Srinivas Reddy (both from Hetero), K. Ayyanna of Aurobindo, M. Bhaskar Rao of Mylan, Y. Ganesh of Granules, V. Satyanarayana of Fuzayama Tools Technology and D. Rajeev Kumar of Celon were also arrested.
