Fact Check: Telangana CM Revanth's brother owns expensive cars, buildings, watches? Images are unrelated
A collage of images showing luxury cars, expensive watches and upscale residential buildings is going viral with the claim that it shows properties bought by A Kondal Reddy, brother of Telangana CM.
By K Sherly Sharon
Claim:The images show luxury cars, expensive watches and upscale residential buildings bought by CM Revanth Reddy’s brother.
Fact:The claim is false. The images show properties seized by the ED in a string of raids on a fake call centre in Gurugram and Delhi on August 20.
Hyderabad: A collage of images showing cars, buildings and watches is going viral on social media. The collage is being circulated with the claim that it shows possessions bought by A Kondal Reddy, brother of CM A Revanth Reddy, ever since the Congress party came into power in the State.
The collage features four images: two images show a lineup of luxury cars, one of high-end watches, and another of upscale residential buildings.
The text on the image reads, “Since the CM Revanth Reddy-led government came to power in Telangana, Revanth’s younger brother has bought expensive cars, bungalows and watches.” (Translated from Telugu)
Sharing the collage on X, a user wrote, “Just in 2 years, is this True Bhavani… Telangana looters. (sic)” (Archive)
Fact Check
NewsMeter found that the claim is false. The images show properties seized by the ED in a string of raids on a fake call centre in Gurugram and Delhi on August 20.
Using reverse image search, we found a report published by CNBC TV 18 on August 25 about a series of ED raids at seven locations in Gurugram and New Delhi on August 20.
The report shared cropped images from the viral collage and wrote that the assets in the pictures were seized in the raids by the Enforcement Directorate.
A TV9 report published on August 23 stated that these raids were conducted in connection with an illegal call centre scam.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) took to X on the same day, sharing the original images from the viral collage. The post stated that raids were conducted in connection to an investigation into the illegal call centre scam targeting foreigners.
“...foreign customers (Mainly US citizens) were duped in the guise of providing non-existent tech support services to the tune of US$ 15 Million from November 2022 to April 2024,” said the post.
ED’s press release on its website detailed the investigation so far.
It revealed that the accused in the case are, Arjun Gulati, Divyansh Goel and Abhinav Kalra. They were involved in running an illegal call centre in Noida and Gurugram duping foreigners under the guise of technical support.
Sharing the images from the viral post, ED stated, “8 luxury cars and various high valued luxury watches were seized. The accused persons are living in luxury big houses allegedly purchased through illegally earned money through cyber scam.”
Going by the evidence, we can say that the viral post does not show the properties acquired by Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy’s brother, A Kondal Reddy, ever since Congress came into power. The images show properties seized during an ED raid in Gurugram and Delhi over an illegal call centre scam.
Therefore, NewsMeter concludes that the viral claim is false.
