Chirala police arrest inter-state gang

Chirala: The Chirala subdivision police arrested two members from an interstate gang for cheating a local in the name of a business, using a website.

Chirala DSP Jayarama Subbareddy explained in a press meet on Tuesday that Swaminath, a resident of Old Chirala came to know that gas dealerships are being issued through a website www.lpgvitarakchayanltd.net and approached them. The organizers of the website asked him to choose from the dealership of Indane and other public sector gas companies and asked him to pay Rs 21800 as application charges. After confirming the agency, the website organizers made Swaminath pay a total of Rs 806800 for the dealership and other charges through deposits into their accounts. Later, they stopped responding to the calls of Swaminath by changing their mobile numbers.

Upon realising that he was cheated by the website organizers, Swaminath registered a complaint to the Town I circle Inspector of Police N Nagamalleswara Rao on January 7, 2020. The inspector formed a team under his supervision with SI Nagasrinu, head constables K Srinivasa Rao, B Atchaiah, T Srinivasa Rao and investigated the case with technical expertise. They searched from the registration of the website, deposits into the bank accounts, withdrawal of the money through IMPS, UPI and payment apps like PayTM and collected their mobile numbers. After tracing their mobile numbers, the police found that the culprits are in Kolkata and arrested Tanchan Naik and Manik Patnaik, natives of East and West Midnapur districts but residents of Kolkata, after putting surveillance on them for three days. The police team submitted them in the Kolkata court and shifted them to Chirala on PT Warrant.

The DSP appreciated the police team for cracking the case and starting the arrests and advised them to arrest the remaining also soon.