Hyderabad: Four held for duping man with gold business FB post

HYDERABAD: Four fraudsters involved in an alleged attention diversion case have been arrested and police recovered Rs 20 lakh cash from their possession.
Kachiguda police arrested Md Rafeeq Ibrahim Kalburgi, 45, a used car salesman from Karnataka, B Srinivas, 55, a realtor from Maharashtra, R Panduranga Rao alias Reddy, 53, a real estate agent from Andhra Pradesh, and M Anvesh Kumar, 32.a private employee from Mancherial. All the accused have criminal history.
In the past, according to police, the accused were duped by others in counterfeit currency and treasure trove cases. About a month ago, Md Abdul Afroz, a lab technician from Mallepally, saw a post on Facebook from Vikas Gautham of Delhi offering gold at a cheaper price, Hyderabad police commissioner Anjani Kumar said. Vikas agreed to provide a kilo gold for Rs 42 lakh and told Afroz to contact Amith Patel of Mumbai. Patel in turn put Afroz in touch with Panduranga Rao alias Reddy. Afroz met Reddy and Srinivas alias Mukesh multiple times at Mehdipatnam and Nacharam, where they showed him gold biscuits.
On October 25, Afroz took Reddy and Anvesh to his room at Nimboliadda and showed them Rs 42 lakh cash. Reddy took Rs 38.5 lakh cash and kept it in a bag and told Afroz that he got Rs 3.5 lakh discount. Subsequently, Reddy pretended as if he forgot the key of the brief case containing gold and told Afroz that he would pick up the key and come with the gold. While leaving the room, the accused swapped the cash bag with a similar bag containing paper bundles, police said.