32-year-old former cricket player has been detained by the Hyderabad cybercrime police for trying to swindle well-known businesspeople by posing as a senior official from the Telangana chief minister’s office.
According to the police, the accused, B Nagaraju, who lives in Andhra Pradesh’s Srikakulam district, has a lengthy history of fraud and has been implicated in more than 30 incidents of defrauding in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh since 2018.
Nagaraju has been arrested in Hyderabad, Vijayawada, and Mumbai for his past impersonations of prominent political aides, including the personal secretaries of former minister KT Rama Rao, Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu, and former chief minister of Andhra Pradesh YS Jagan Mohan Reddy.
Police said that Nagaraju recently established a phony email address, [email protected], and pretended to be B Ajith Reddy, the Telangana chief minister’s personal secretary and officer on special duty. He attempted to obtain financial aid under the pretense of formal requests by using this fictitious persona to approach a number of prominent corporate leaders, including managing directors of Rapido, Gupta Realty, and Bollineni Infra Projects.
His arrest came when the CMO officer, whose identity had been abused, filed a report on May 15. Sections 66C and 66D of the IT Act as well as 319(2) (cheating by personation) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita were used to register the complaint. Nagaraju is accused of contacting and attempting to mislead his targets via a combination of phone conversations, WhatsApp messages, and emails.
“He has a consistent pattern of impersonating influential figures to defraud people. He also claimed to have played state-level cricket in AP,” said D Kavitha, deputy commissioner of police, cybercrimes, Hyderabad.
Additionally, investigators disclosed that he was the subject of a non-bailable warrant in the XII additional chief metropolitan magistrate court in Nampally. Inspector S Mattam Raju led a squad that made the arrest and captured Nagaraju in his AP village. A cell phone was confiscated. The defendant was remanded in judicial prison after appearing in a local court on Wednesday.
A public warning has been released by the Hyderabad police, asking people to be cautious and not reply to emails or texts allegedly from high-ranking government officials asking for cash favors. Cybercrime victims can report incidences by visiting cybercrime.gov.in or by phoning 1930.
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