VIJAYAWADA: In view of the recent arrests of fake ACB officials in Kurnool district, ACB raided officers who were duped by their fake counterparts across the state on Tuesday.
Addressing a press conference, Reddy Gangadhar Rao, joint director of ACB (Rayalaseema), said that a few chain snatchers and other criminals had joined forces during their time in prison and posed as ACB officers fooling several government employees across the state. "The accused had confessed to the police that they were inspired by a relatively recent Kollywood flick 'Thaana Serntha Kootam' which was dubbed in Telugu as Gang, starring Surya," Rao told TOI. Rao said the accused blackmailed 13 government employees and collected 28.5 lakh.
"It is very pathetic that to pay the amounts to fake ACB officials by receiving threatening calls, even they are public servants in higher cadre. It shows their acceptance as they are corrupt officers," the ACB official said.
Around 13 teams were formed and raids were conducted across Srikakulam, Visakhapatnam, Eluru, Vijayawada, Ongole, Nellore,
Tirupati and Kadapa.
The officers were identified as John Viklif, deputy engineers of R&B, joint chief inspector of factories J Siva Sankar Reddy, R Prabhakara Rao, deputy collector of Eluru, Venkateswara Rao, executive engineer, rural water supply, K Ramachandra Rao, motor vehicle inspector, Markapuram, RDO P Umadevi, deputy commissioner of GST, state tax Y Venkata Durga Prasad, Industrial chief inspector
K Parameswara Rao
, motor vehicle inspector, Gudur T Raghavara Rao, executive engineer G Chandrasekhar, municipal commissioner of Palamaneru
Vijayasimha Reddy
and deputy SE, irrigation circle Ch Krishna Murthy. The ACB officials said that they had found other irregularities like attendance registers not being properly maintained and failing to upload inspection reports during the raids.
The officials said that they found many of them paying money through cash deposit machines (CDMs) to fake ACB officers and the corroborating evidence has been found from both ends of the transactions.