Hyderabad: A 31-year-old man was arrested by the Sultan Bazar Police on Tuesday, April 28, for allegedly duping people who had come to deposit money at ATMs.
The accused has been identified as Intipalli Rama Rao, a native of Andhra Pradesh who currently resides in a dormitory at Jubilee Bus Station.
According to the police, the accused would approach people who had come to deposit money in the ATMs, win their trust through polite conversation and then take their cash, promising to send an equivalent amount through National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT).
The accused would then send a fake transaction message to the victims and tell them that it would take an hour to receive the money before fleeing from the spot.
The matter came to light after the Sultan Bazar Police received a complaint from a woman on April 22. Sunitha, a resident of Secunderabad, told police that earlier in the day, she had gone to an SBI ATM to deposit Rs 1 lakh, but due to some technical issue amount could not be deposited in her account.
At this time, an unknown person approached her, offering to transfer the amount from his NEFT account. The complainant accepted the offer, after which the accused showed her a message saying that the money had been transferred to her account.
However, when the complainant said that she did not receive any message from her bank, the accused asked her to come along with him and wait in his shop.
After waiting with her for 20 minutes, the accused sent all his ID proofs to her for assurance and left the shop. When Sunitha still had not received the money by the end of the day, she approached the Sultan Bazar Police.
There she came to know that the person was a habitual offender and realised that she had been duped.
The police registered a case under sections 318(4) (cheating) and 303(2) (theft) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and started an investigation.
After reviewing the closed circuit television (CCTV) camera footage of nearby ATMs, the police were able to apprehend the offender at the Indian Bank ATM near Taj Mahal Hotel in Narayanguda.
The accused has reportedly confessed to being involved in 73 cases between 2025 and 2018.
