The Cyberabad police on Wednesday arrested a gang involved in tampering fuel dispensing machines at fuel stations and causing loss to the customers. The police recovered four laptops, five hard discs, three programmers, 600 IC chips, 100 remotes, a Chevrolet car and cash of Rs. 1.5 lakh from them.
The arrested persons - Md. Hifzul Bari, Shaik Sikender, Mudhana Kalyan, Shibu K Thomas and Shaik Mustafa, all fuel machine repairers. Three other persons: Sandeep, Md. Faizul Bari and Vivek are absconding.
The police said that the gang in connivance with the fuel station management would tamper the fuel dispensing machines by installing manipulated chips in fuel dispensing machines. After installation of these chips the machine would show the preset reading but would deliver less quantity.
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One of the gang members, Thomas, would programme the chips using computers so as to deliver less quantity of fuel but show the preset reading. He sold the chips to other gang members who installed them at various petrol bunks across the country including Andhra Pradesh, the police said.
The police said that the gang members cheated people to the tune of lakhs of rupees in this fashion. The arrests were made by the Special Operations Team of the Cyberabad police along with Kukatpally police.