Lalitha Jewellers employee tries to extort money from colleague; arrested 

Hyderabad: An employee of Lalitha Jewellers working at Tirupati, posing as a terrorist, tried to extort money from his former colleague. Geddada Satya Srinivasa Prasad Rao demanded Rs 30 lakh from his colleague Ramgopal Reddy and threatened to kill and chop his minor daughter into pieces if he did not agree to his demands. Though he communicated all his demands through letters, one SMS that he sent to Ramgopal, from a stranger’s mobile phone, landed him in jail.

Geddada Satya Srinivasa Prasad Rao and Ramgopal Reddy worked together at Lalitha Jewellers Somajiguda branch for around three years. A few months ago Prasad Rao was transferred to the Tirupati store, after which he amassed a debt.While working at Somajiguda, Prasad Rao and Ramgopal Reddy were close friends and shared personal and family issues. Keeping this in mind, Prasad Rao though it would be easy to extort money from Ramgopal. He first sent him letters in Urdu script posing as a terrorist organisation and demanded Rs 30 lakh. In the first letter, he asked Ramgopal “to keep the cash in a wildcraft green colour college bag and keep the bag on the Charminar Express in S1 coach seat no 08 ”

When there was no response to the letter, he sent an SMS from a stranger’s mobile phone. He met the stranger at Mahatma Gandhi bus station a few days ago. By saying that he was in an emergency and his phone was not working, he took the stranger’s mobile and sent a text to Ramgopal threatening to kill his 12-year-old daughter and cut her into pieces. But when there was still no response to the SMS, he sent another letter asking Ramgopal to keep the cash in a wildcraft green colour college bag and place it on the seat No 44 in Coach-A1 of the Narayanadri Express.

On inquiry, police traced the mobile number from which Ramgopal received SMS and identified the user. On inquiry, he said that an unidentified person used his mobile phone for an emergency. Police analysed the CCTV footages at MGBS and traced the person who used the mobile. Further, when the footage was shown to Ramgopal, he identified the person as Prasad Rao.

Prasad Rao was arrested and produced before the court on Friday.

Also Read: https://newsmeter.in/three-more-arrested-by-acb-in-the-insurance-medical-services-scam/