Sting exposes Amulya Trust fraud

Gullible people cheated to the tune of 1.7 cr

Guntur: Over 170 people had fallen prey to the evil machinations of four financial fraudsters operating from Tenali, Guntur and Vijayawada. The fraudster gang during the past four years collected Rs 1 lakh each from 170 gullible people by promising a bonanza of Rs 1 crore each.

The startling details came to light following a sting operation done by HMTV on Saturday. The four fraudsters -- Amulya Rao, Sambasiva Rao, Samadhanam and Rajeshwara Rao – told the victims to pay Rs 1 lakh by promising that they would get Rs 1 crore in return.

The scamsters made the people believe that an organization, called Amulya Trust in the US, would soon transfer Rs 1 lakh crore to the Andhra Bank account of Amulya Rao, a blind man who is the king pin of the entire financial scam. When the depositors started demanding the promised money, the fraudsters told them that the delay was due to government restrictions on the fund transfer.

And they made the depositors believe that they would get the money soon.A HMTV team which smelled a rat took up a sting operation feigning as prospective depositors who intend to pay Rs 1 lakh in return for the promised bonanza.

They met one Rajeshwara Rao playing the role of a sort of pimp who first enticed people with the bonanza offer and connecting them to Sambasiva Rao, a resident of Vengalarayapalem on the outskirts of the city and a trusted lieutenant of Amulya Rao of Tenali on Septmber 15.

Sambasiva Rao explained the modus operandi of the financial scheme to the inquisitive party (HMTV) who evinced interest in making the deposit. The HMTV team met Sambasiva Rao in a cafe in the city near the RTC bus complex and the latter explained to the team that Amulya Rao's Trust has Rs 1 lakh crore which in due course would be transferred to the Andhra Bank account of Sambasiva Rao and Amulya Rao.

They were also told that the Modi government had imposed restrictions of foreign funding but they had bribed the higher officials in the Union Home Ministry and were succeeded in getting 22 types of documents which gave their funds a white money status.

The money collected from the people was according to the scamsters spent on ensuring the safe passage of the funds from the US to the local accounts. Once the massive fund is transferred each depositor would be given the Reserve Bank-recognized 'Pay Slips'.

If one presents these slips in any nationalised bank, Rs 1 crore would be theirs, the scamsters told the team. They need not pay any tax on the Rs 1 crore but all they needed to do was to pay tax only on the interest earned on their Rs 1 crore deposit. The Andhra Bank could also deliver the bonanza due to them at their homes if they so insisted, they said.

Sambasiva has also told the team (HMTV) that since the money is set to be transferred to the local accounts any moment, they (HMTV team) are lucky as no such deposit will be accepted once the funds are transferred and in that sense the HMTV was told that they are probably the last to benefit from the bonanza. After all the briefing, the HMTV team members left the place promising the scamsters to return soon with the money.

On Saturday, the team met Sambasiva Rao at his residence at Vengalarayanagar on the city outskirts. The HMTV team took along with them another person (part of HMTV team) introducing to Sambasiva Rao as the brother of prospective depositor and asked the later to explain the whole modus-operandi of the deposit scheme.

The details were repeated and when the HMTV team removed the mask of the ‘depositor’ and displayed the HMTV mike, the fraudsters were flabbergasted and Sambasiva Rao began changing his version saying that he had nothing to do with the scam and only Amulya Rao was the kingpin of the fraud.

He also tried to bribe the HMTV team pleading with them to hold the telecast for a while so that they could return the entire deposit money collected in the presence of the HMTV personnel.