How Vizag engineer posed as CM's aide to extract money from politicians to fund girlfriend's lifestyle

Visakhapatnam: Imagine a man blackmailing and extracting money from MLAs and political honchos with finesse! Police have arrested a Vizag-based engineer for cheating and blackmailing the political leaders in Rajasthan.

Identified as 28-year-old Pandiri Vishnu Murthy alias Sagar of Srinagar in Vizag, he is a computer engineer by profession and expert hacker. Police said that Vishnu Murthy was arrested for allegedly trying to swindle Rs 30 lakh from an MLA by posing as a close associate of Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot.

Vishnu Murthy had put Ashok Gehlot's photo as DP on WhatsApp. He used to chat with Tijara MLA Sandeep Kumar and posing Gehlot's aide. During the chat, he asked Kumar to send some money to a different mobile number through online money transfer apps. He also made a phone call from a different number. The MLA contacted the officials at the chief minister's office (CMO). The MLA alerted the Bhiwadi police station a few days ago.

Based on the complaint, Rajasthan police investigated the case and came to know that the accused was in Vizag city. Rajasthan police along with the Gajuwaka police arrested Murthy on Sunday. Police said that Vishnu Murthy had been involved in four cybercrimes in Vizag city and other places. The investigation has revealed that Vishnu Murthy had extracted Rs two crore from the political leaders in Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan. The accused has completed his BTech (Computer Science) and he is an expert at hacking computers and mobile phones.

He is also an expert in using VPN servers to mask his location and IP address. He took the crime route to fund his girlfriend's expensive lifestyle.