A whopping ₹20 crore was swindled by the mastermind Chunduri Venkata Koti Sai Kumar, 49, in ₹64.50 crore Telugu Akademi fixed deposit fraud.
Others who siphoned off a large amount of money are -- Chairman and Managing Director of A.P. Mercantile Cooperative Credit Society Ltd., Vijayawada, B.V.V.N. Satyanarayana Rao, and realtor Nandui Venkata Raman, 50, ₹10 crore and ₹7 crore, respectively.
While Sai Kumar and Raman were partners in the fraud, Rao got the share for parking the money in his society by creating a fake account in the name of Telugu Akademi.
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In his remand report submitted to XII Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Hyderabad Central Crime Station, Assistant Commissioner of Police (WCO) K Manoj Kumar stated that based on their preliminary investigation, they found out how much amount all the accused shared between January 2021 and August 2021.
He said that Union Bank of India chief manager Shaik Mastanvali Saheb and Canara Bank’s Santosh Nagar branch manager M. Sadhana received ₹2.5 crore and ₹1.99 crore respectively, on regular intervals. Absconding accused persons Krishna Reddy from Miyapur and Ramana Reddy got ₹6 crore each, Bhoopathi from Nagole got ₹2.5 crore, Padmanaban from Chennai and Yohan Raju from Vijayawada was given a share of ₹50 lakh each, and Mandan from Shiridi, Maharashtra, got ₹30 lakh from the fraud money. However, there was no mention of the amount received by Akademi’s Administrative Officer and in-charge accounts officer Segoori Ramesh, in the remand report.
The ACP also informed the court that confessional statements of the accused were not recorded due to lack of time while the role of each person involved in the case is yet to be ascertained. “The amount distributed between the accused has to be recovered, and a few persons are still at large. And the bank statements of the accused are to be collected,” the officer stated in the remand report. Further, he requested the court to remand the accused in judicial custody for 15 days, so as to enable them to proceed further with the investigation as they might tamper with the evidence and that difficulties might further arise in the investigation. The investigation agency has to examine several documents from the office of APMCCS, UBI and Canara Bank to establish how the amounts have been transferred to Agrasen Cooperative Bank.
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The mastermind Sai Kumar, a realtor from the city, was previously involved in similar offences in Andhra Pradesh and Chennai. He withdrew the FDRs of AP Minority Welfare Society in 2012 and the case is being investigated by the Crime Investigation Department (CID). Sai Kumar was also accused in AP Housing Board Scam of nearly ₹6 crore and ₹25 crore FDR fraud of Northern Coal Fields in Chennai, both cases are being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation.