Five pseudo reporters arrested, net cash Rs 50,000 recovered

Hyderabad: The West Zone task force team on Saturday nabbed five fake reporters on charges of entering Spas and Massage Centres illegally and extorting money from owners.

The police recovered net cash of Rs 50,000, TV press reporter identity card, one DVR Box, Hard disc and seven cell phones from the possession of the accused.

The accused persons were identified as A Surender Raju (33), S Kiran Kumar (30), T Raghunath Chary (28), B Raja Krishna (26) and B Ravi (28).

According to the police, the prime accused Surender Raju previously started a beauty salon business at Habsiguda but it liquidated due to losses.

Later he started working as a car driver. At the time of running beauty salon as most of the customers asked him to arrange for cross massage, he arranged without obtaining any license and permission from authorities.

As such, he hatched a plan to extort money from massage parlours by posing as a reporter. He shared his plan with other accused, who agreed, and they hatched plan to extort money from massage parlours.

On 7 August the accused persons entered Family beauty Salon and Spa at SR Nagar and extorted money of Rs 40,000 and fled away from the spot.

Likewise, on August 7 and August 13, the accused persons entered other such places at SR Nagar and Habsiguda areas and extorted money.

On credible information, the task force personnel arrested the accused persons and recovered extorted money from their possession.

The arrested persons along with seized property were handed over to SR Nagar police station for further action.