Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, May 24: In a biggest ever recovery in the history of police, the Crime Branch, Jammu has recovered Rs 1.20 crore from an organized gang of criminals involved in cheating the innocent people by selling fake precious metal Trath-Gola describing it as meteorite used for research in space agencies.
Official sources said the Crime Branch, Jammu has succeeded in effecting recovery of Rs 1.20 crore from an organized gang of criminals including Rs .015 crore from the gang operating from Kulgam and Anantnag and Rs 18.5 lakh from another gang running from Batote-Mansar.
Two fraudsters Venkata Krishna Modegula of Padmarao Nagar, Secunderabad and Sandeep Singh Rana of Paryot, district Doda involved in the infamous Trath-Gola case have already been arrested by Crime Branch Jammu from Secunderabad, Telangana and Jammu respectively.
IGP Crime Branch Munir Khan stated that on the written complaint lodged by Raj Kumar Gupta of Gandhi Nagar, who had alleged that he was duped by a gang of inter-state fraudsters on the pretext of selling a precious item Trath-Gola/Copper Irridium for a whoping amount of Rs 8 crore, adding that SSP Crime Branch Jammu, Mubassir Latifi constituted a special team to investigate this unique case in which an organized gang of criminals duped not only the complainant but also involved in similar cases and have looted number of people.
The team headed by Inspector Parvez Sajjad succeeded in apprehending the main kingpin of the gang namely Venkata Krishna Modegula from Secunderabad, Andhra Pradesh, who had advanced the allurements to the complainant on the pretext of being a qualified scientist having affiliation with NASA and DRDO and who issued certifications in favour of the so called precious metal and in turn took a huge amount of Rs 3 crore from the complainant, IGP State Crime Branch said, adding that an amount of Rs 1.5 lakh and one licensed pistol (purchased from the looted amount) was also recovered from another accused Sandeep Rana of Paryot, district Doda, who is also an active and important member of this gang.
After his arrest, the accused Venkata Krishna Modegula preferred a bail application before the court of Ld Chief Judicial Magistrate, Jammu but the same was rejected after being forcibly resisted by the prosecution of the Crime Branch with the observations that the accused was the part of the wide network spread all over the country to allure and cheat the innocent persons and incase concession of bail is extended there is every likelihood that the offences may be repeated and more innocent persons may be allured and cheated, IGP State Crime Branch stated.
After having exhausted all the available remedies, the accused finally broke and surrendered an amount of Rs 1 crore before the Crime Branch, Jammu.
Investigation of the case is still under progress and more arrests and recovery of the remaining amount is expected in the coming days, Khan maintained.
As per official sources, 15 more accused persons involved in the gang have been identified, but they were still at large. All of them belonged to Anantnag and Kulgam districts of South Kashmir.
SSP Crime Branch Jammu Mubassir Latifi has appealed to the people not to fall in the trap of these persons as no such metal (Trath-Gola) exists in reality.
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