Hyd Techie, education consultancy MD among 4 held in fake certificate racket

Hyderabad: Four people, including a techie, who were running a fake education certificates racket were arrested by the Rachakonda special operations team and the Chaitanyapuri police on 5 July.

They have been identified as Rohith Kumar, Vadlamuri Srinivasa Rao, Sirisala Lakshmi, and Garepally Sai Pranay. The police seized from them 40 fake consolidated memorandum of marks, 20 fake degree certificates, and 30 fake provisional certificates.

According to the police, the four prepared forged degrees and engineering certificates from various reputed universities such as Kakatiya University, JNTU, and Acharya Nagarjuna University. The police also seized fake rubber stamps, non-judicial stamp papers, and cell phones from the four.

The police launched an investigation after Sadu Jithendar, a technical recruiter at Infodeed, filed a complaint on 2 July. Jithendar wanted to study in the US and approached the MD of SL Overseas Education Consultancy, Srisala Lakshmi (one of the accused), with his certificates and requested them to process his Visa.

Lakshmi informed Jithendar that the charge for processing a Visa is Rs. 1 lakh. Initially, Jithendar paid an advance of Rs. 50,000 via PhonePe. A few days later, he paid the remaining amount and Lakshmi handed him a cover containing some certificates.

Later, Jithendar found that the certificates were fake. There was a provisional certificate (B.Sc.) from Kakatiya University, a consolidated memorandum of marks, a convocations certificate, a graduation declaration certificate from Sahithi Degree College, and a letter of recommendation for the Master's program in Jithendar's name.

Following this, Jithendar filed a complaint with the police.

During the investigation, the police found that Rohith, a software engineer, edited and forged certificates using Adobe Photoshop. He collected Rs. 30,000 to 40,000 for this. He was given work by Laxmi through a mediator, Srinivasa Rao. Srinivasa had also got a fake certificate from Rohith for Rs. 40,000.

Another accused, Garepally Sai Pranay, completed his CA IPCC (Integrated Proficiency Competency Course) but did not graduate. He obtained fake graduation certificates of Kakatiya University from the education consultancy by paying Rs. 80,000.