Conman takes bureaucrats for ride; lands in police dragnet

Con artiste is identified as Machiraju Bala Venkata Subrahmanayeswara Sharam of Amalapuram in East Godavari district, AP He fakes a story that his children have their luggage stolen while travelling and they are to attend counselling in medical college He defrauds several persons, including three officers

Hyderabad: An alleged trickster, who managed to masquerade as a minister and bureaucrat and cheated several persons of their money, landed behind bars here on Sunday. The Jubilee Hills police arrested the con artiste, identified as Machiraju Bala Venkata Subrahmanayeswara Sharam (35).

He hailed from Amalapuram town in East Godavari district, Andhra Pradesh, the police said. He posed as a political leader and senior officials and a director in the councils of engineering and medical colleges, too. Sharma, the police said, had had introduced himself to Agriculture Market Committee Secretary T S R K Sastry as Dana Kishore.

He posed as Marketing Commissioner and swindled Sastry of Rs 50,000 by telling the latter that his children had their luggage stolen and they were to attend medical counselling. He also called up two other government officials, narrated the same story and defrauded them of Rs 40,000 and Rs 30,000 respectively.

Sharma introduced himself to Tribal Development Agency Project Officer at Paderu in Visakhapatnam district and requested him to lend him Rs 30,000 by repeating the same story of his children losing luggage while travelling and they were to attend counselling at NIT in Warangal.

He employed similar tactics and cheated several persons in Hyderabad and at several places in Telangana State and Andhra Pradesh. A case under sections 420 (cheating) and 419 (cheating by impersonation) of IPC was registered against him, police added.