Man arrested for duping people after posing as senior bureaucrat

A 29-year-old man was arrested for allegedly impersonating a senior bureaucrat and duping people of crores of rupees on the pretext of procuring licences for petrol pumps, gas agencies and house allotments, police said Wednesday.

Sampath Kumar Surappagari, a resident of Ammapur in Mehboobnagar district of Telangana was arrested on Tuesday from a hotel in Mahipalpur area of Delhi, they said.

To earn a lavish life, Surappagari used to introduce himself as a senior bureaucrat and accompanied a few persons as his bodyguards to induce the victims into paying him money. He had also made fake ID cards of government departments, police said.

According to police, in May 2017, the victim, Malipaddi Sandeep, a resident of Hyderabad, was approached by K. Ramaswamy, a resident of Mehboobnagar district. Ramaswamy told him his nephew, Surappagari, is a senior bureaucrat and posted in New Delhi.

He also told him that Surappagari can get the licences approved for Bharat Petroleum and Bharat Gas. He asked Sandeep to pay Rs 1.8 crore for both the licences. He convinced him that this would be a good investment and that he was required to travel to Delhi to apply for the licences, said Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) G. Ram Gopal Naik.

The accused booked the flight tickets for them.

On June 8, 2017, Surappagari met them at a hotel near Delhi airport. He told Sandeep that he is a "very powerful" person in Delhi and he has links with several influential people. He convinced Sandeep he can get any licence approved throughout India, the officer said.

Sandeep transferred Rs 1.40 crore to his bank account and Surappagari further asked him to pay Rs 40 lakh cash in the 1st week of July 2017 at Hyderabad to Ramaswamy. the victim was assured he would get licences of a petrol pump and a gas agency by the end of August 2017, the officer added.

The accused also took Rs 20 lakh from the victim's father-in-law. Both, Surappagari and Ramaswamy, were in touch with the victim till October 2018, the DCP said.

Later, the accused told him over phone that the work cannot be completed and in return, he issued cheques to the victim. When the cheques bounced, the victim contacted Surappagari. The accused threatened the victim that if he complained to police, he would send his PSO and get him killed, the senior officer said.

In February 2019, the victim filed a complaint with police. Subsequently, Surappagari was arrested.

During interrogation, he told police that he completed his B.Sc in electronics from Hyderabad in 2013 and came to Delhi to prepare for civil services examination. But he could not succeed in the exam and started publishing a daily newspaper from Karol Bagh, the officer added.

The accused was earlier arrested in three criminal cases in Hyderabad, police said.