Visakhapatnam IT firm raided for ‘Mana Sand’ application irregularities

Visakhapatnam: Digging deep into the alleged irregularities in the ‘Mana Sand’ applications, CID sleuths raided Bluefrog Mobile technologies, seizing several items from the premises. Bluefrog is a mobile software application developing company located at the centre of the city in Siripuram.

The CID received complaints stating that the IT firm hacked the state government’s official site relating to disbursement and transaction of sand and tampered with the data. Following which the Visakhapatnam wing of CID led by DSP I Chittibabu searched the premises of the company on Wednesday.

The officer said that they verified data related to ten mines and their source code, log files of various applications done by the company and data in systems in connection with the sand related transactions were verified. They added that they are yet to check some e-mails related to sand transactions, screenshots of the same, and cloud data about the applications. The IT firm was established in 2008, and it employs about 100 professionals.

The IT firm develops tailor-made applications on the request of clients, and at present, the state/central government are their significant clients. So far, they have developed close to 70 applications in different modules for government schemes.

As per CID officials, in 2017, they got a workforce supply contract from the AP Mines Department and supplied 80 heads for monitoring vehicle movement at various sand reaches. The then state government paid them Rs 80 lakh. “This aspect is also being investigated,” the officials said.