Inspired by actor Suriya’s film, a man from Karnataka’s Chikkaballapura district, posing as a Lokayukta officer, allegedly extorted around Rs 3 crores from more than 60 government officials in Karnataka, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh, Indian Express reported. On Tuesday, January 2nd, the Central Crime Branch arrested the accused, identified as Srinath Reddy (some reports say Srinivas Reddy), an Andhra Pradesh native. The accused has already had 36 cases filed against him in three states.
According to B Dayananda, Bengaluru Police Commissioner, the accused was arrested after a government officer Ramdas filed a complaint against him at the Vidhana Soudha Police Station after he received an extortion call. The accused would collect government officials’ phone numbers, call them, and introduce himself as Lokayukta inspector Chandrashekar.
“He would tell the officer that there were several complaints against him and would seek bribes to close the case by filing a ‘B’ report,” Commissioner Dayananda said.
According to the police, Reddy extorted more than Rs 3 crore from officials and used the money to live a lavish lifestyle, including frequent visits to casinos in Goa. The majority of the money was spent on air travel and visits to tourist destinations within the country.
Notably, in the film ‘Gang’, based on the Hindi film ‘Special 26,’ the protagonist forms a gang to extort money from corrupt government officials by impersonating Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officials.
“He has made extortion calls to government officials in Karnataka, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh. He has cheated around 40 to 50 government officials. He has a criminal history of robberies dating back to 2007. He was inspired by a Telugu movie and started extorting money from government officials,” News9 quoted Bengaluru Police Commissioner B Dayananda as saying.
Srinath Reddy has studied till 10th standard and resided in Bagepalli with his wife and children.
Notably, a similar case was reported in November last year wherein a 68-year-old man was arrested for impersonating a Lokayukta inspector and attempting to extort money from a government official.
The accused, Thyagaraj from Bengaluru, called an Assistant Executive Engineer and claimed to be a Lokayukta inspector investigating an allegation against the engineer. He tried to extort money by saying the matter would be settled with senior officials otherwise the engineer would be in trouble. The police traced the caller and arrested him based on the complaint. It was found that Thyagaraj was addicted to betting on horse races and tried to extort money to fund his gambling habits.
