Gang posing as CID team abducts IT employees, busted

Hyderabad: The Raidurgam police of the Cyberabad police Commissionerate busted a gang for kidnapping ransom and arrested eight persons on Tuesday.

According to the police, the complainant, Darshan Sugunakara Shetty, is the director of AJA ADS India Private Limited, a firm that employs over 40 people and handles US IT hiring and IT support. The accused belonged to Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh.

The arrested persons were an advocate P Mahendra Kumar (38), IT expert Shaikh Mohammed Abdul Quadir (33), real estate agent Vijay Shekar (32), ex-manager Akkera Ranjith Kumar (47), associate advocate Balinga Rahul (33), Dadiboina Subba Krishna (40), Sandeep Kumar (31) pseudo inspector CBCID, and Raghu Raju (33) pseudo police constable. Two individual Raja pseudo-police constables and sub-inspector Sujan are absconding.

The police said the accused, Mahendra, conspired with Ranjith to demand ransom from the company directors. Mahendra discussed it with Sujan, SI of Police, Kurnool, DIG Office.

On which the SI advised him to first verify the office operations physically, then they could plan how to proceed in the matter. Further, the SI also introduced one technical expert, Quadir, a cyber expert who created fake police identity cards.

As per their plan, the suspects on January 26 went to the IT firm, posing as cops, and claimed they received a complaint from the US authorities against irregularities in the firm. They first demanded Rs 10 crore. On negotiation, they finally came down to Rs 2.3 crore for the final settlement.