
Andhra man arrested for duping many in fake stock mkt schemes
The accused was nabbed after a months-long technical operation spanning across Haryana, Delhi, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh.
Deputy commissioner of police (Crime) Kundan Kanwaria said the accused has been identified as Palli Venkat Ramanjaneyulu.
"Acting on a complaint filed on Nov 17, 2024 at the Cyber Police Station, the team launched a detailed investigation. The complainant alleged that he was cheated through multiple transactions under the guise of investing in a fraudulent online stock trading platform," Kanwaria said.
Two other accused were already arrested earlier in connection with the case. Further technical analysis of the bank accounts revealed that Rs 1.42 crore was transferred to Ramanjaneyulu's account. Cyber investigators then examined his mobile usage patterns and digital trail. He was on the run, frequently changing locations and mobile devices to evade capture.
After three months of sustained tracking, the accused was finally traced to Krishna district in Andhra Pradesh and apprehended on 11 July 2025.
by Taboola
by Taboola
Sponsored Links
Sponsored Links
Promoted Links
Promoted Links
You May Like
This Could Be the Best Time to Trade Gold in 5 Years
IC Markets
Learn More
Undo
He was brought to Jaipur on a transit warrant and produced in court, which remanded him to police custody. He is now in judicial custody.
The accused operated a fake WhatsApp profile to contact victims, shared links to fraudulent stock trading websites, and persuaded them to invest. In the initial phase, small profits—actually diverted from the deposits of other victims—were paid to build trust. Once larger amounts were invested, he offered excuses for not returning the money and eventually cut off contact.
The cyber team has collected extensive digital evidence, examined bank transactions, and continues to analyse data linked to related accounts. Investigations are ongoing to identify more victims and potential accomplices.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Indian Express
11 minutes ago
- Indian Express
Smuggled from Nigeria, ‘cooked' in Delhi, delivered at doorstep: Inside Rs 100-cr cocaine and MDMA racket
As soon as the call centre in Nigeria received a phone call from India, the operator noted down the request — how many kilograms of cocaine and MDMA were needed. Kallis, the call centre owner, would then send women to Delhi with packets of pure-grade narcotics taped to their bodies. From the Delhi airport, the Indian handlers of Kallis – of African origin – would collect the packets, process them in 'kitchens' at South Delhi's Chattarpur, and hand them over to 'delivery agents', also Africans. The agents would then prepare two batches of drugs, one to be transported to Australia and New Zealand, and the other for doorstep delivery in Delhi. This was how, the police said, an intercontinental drug smuggling network operated, where orders were placed to Nigerian call centres on behalf of Indian customers for street-grade cocaine and MDMA. On Friday, the Delhi Police Crime Branch said it has now dismantled the operation, by seizing drugs worth over Rs 100 crore and arresting five Nigerian nationals, who were allegedly working for cross-continental drug kingpin Callistus alias Kallis. The police identified the accused as Kameni Philipp, Adore, Victor, Kelechi Chikwe, and a person known as 'Tall Guy'. The police sniffed out the trail on June 13 when a constable tracked a package to a godown in Moti Nagar. The package, containing more than 800 grams of cocaine, was wrapped among packed suits. 'The parcel led us to Cameroonian national Kameni Philipp (44) in Rajpura. We recovered 2,012 grams of cocaine from his possession,' Additional CP (Crime) Mangesh Kashyap said. The police said that Phillip, who stays in Delhi with his wife and three children, had come to India in 2017 on a Nigerian passport. He returned to Cameroon in 2020 and came back again in March 2025 on a medical visa on the instructions of Kallis, his uncle. Police said Phillip was sent to Delhi to be Kallis' eyes and ears as his uncle didn't trust his India operator – a Nigerian named Adore (53). 'His (Phillip's) associate, Victor, supplied MDMA, which they packaged into parcels bound for New Zealand and Australia. Later, Kallis provided him with pure Colombian cocaine bricks,' said Additional CP Kashyap. According to police, Phillip distributed the cocaine in Delhi via Victor by using delivery boys — Kelechi Chikwe and 'Tall Guy'. 'The syndicate adopted a food delivery app-style model, dispatching deliveries based on live customer locations. Delivery agents followed a uniform dress code – checked shirts and black helmets – to maintain consistency,' Kashyap added. The money collected from the delivery agents was given to Phillip, who would facilitate a hawala-like network to rewire the money back to Kallis using a Nigerian shell company, said police. Kallis also allegedly provided money exchange services to Indians in Nigeria who wished to send cash home. 'He would collect the desired amount in Naira from Indian clients, and direct Phillip to facilitate the payment in rupees – made from the drug trade – to the relatives of the client in India, cleaning his drug money in the process… The syndicate charged a commission of 3-5% on each such transaction. In the last six months alone, over 85 crore Naira was used as part of these illicit cross-border transactions,' Kashyap said. Police said Adore was arrested from his Chattarpur kitchen with 146 grams of MDMA, 156 grams of cocaine and 1,028 grams of ganja. He has allegedly admitted to distributing 7 kg of cocaine and identified his associate Victor, a street-level distributor operating in Vasant Kunj. The police said that Victor admitted that Philip received 18 kg of pure cocaine from Kallis for distribution in India.


Indian Express
11 minutes ago
- Indian Express
Gurugram digital arrest scam: Court rejects bail plea of key accused, points to bank chairman role
A court in Gurugram has rejected the second bail application of a former cooperative bank director from Hyderabad in a Rs 5.8-crore digital arrest scam case while noting that 'the chairman of the bank is also involved' according to the accused's disclosure statement and has 'to be joined into the (police) investigation'. In the order rejecting bail on July 21, Judicial Magistrate Arun Dabla found the allegations in the case to be 'grave and serious' and stated that the accused, Samudrala Venkateswarlu, committed a 'socio economic offence which has deep rooted impact on the society'. The scam, which targeted a top advertising executive, was at the heart of a series of investigative reports published by The Indian Express last month on how digital scamsters moved crores in minutes across banks and state borders using and reusing 'mule' accounts. In the Gurugram case — just one of the 1.23 lakh such crimes that were reported in 2024 involving Rs 1,935 crore — this newspaper reported that scamsters routed the Rs 5.8 crore from the victim's HDFC Bank account through three layers: an ICICI Bank account of a college student in Haryana's Jhajjar; 25 other accounts in 10 banks across the country; and, onward to 141 more accounts. The second layer of 25 accounts included at least 11 in Sreenivasa Padmavathi Co-operative Urban Bank of Hyderabad where Samudrala was a director. At the time, The Indian Express spoke to the bank chairman P Srinivas Kumar who blamed officials at ICICI Bank for not raising the alarm. On Friday, Kumar told The Indian Express that he was 'unaware' of the latest court order and Samudrala's allegations. 'If someone approaches me officially, I will see what is to be done,' Kumar, who is also a lawyer, said. The court's order also mirrors the other findings of this newspaper: a bulk of the stolen money (Rs 4.87 crore) was 'transferred' to accounts in the Hyderabad bank; the account-holders included Royya Sharadha (a tailor) and N Ravinder (a carpenter) who told police that Samudrala allegedly made them sign blank cheque books and withdrawal forms on the pretext of getting them jobs. Samudrala was arrested on April 29 by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Gurugram police, which is probing the case. During interrogation, Samudrala allegedly told police that he had been lodged in the Sabarmati Jail from September 2024 to January this year and then till February in the Rajkot Central Jail in similar cases. In its latest order, the Gurugram court said, 'The court must be proactive in such cases where the accused dupe innocent and poor people and mercilessly take away all their hard earned money and deprived them of their life time savings… if such accused are dealt with leniency and they are granted bail in a casual manner then it would certainly send a wrong message in the society…' It noted that Rs 18.5 lakh has so far been recovered. The Indian Express had also reported that the SIT was alerted by the Union Home Ministry's cyber fraud unit, Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), that the 11 accounts in Hyderabad are also allegedly at the heart of 181 other such complaints. According to one complaint, Rs 21 crore had allegedly passed through these accounts in just three months. The order rejecting Samudrala's bail stated: 'Investigation is still pending and the other co-accused are yet to be arrested…' Ritu Sarin is Executive Editor (News and Investigations) at The Indian Express group. Her areas of specialisation include internal security, money laundering and corruption. Sarin is one of India's most renowned reporters and has a career in journalism of over four decades. She is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) since 1999 and since early 2023, a member of its Board of Directors. She has also been a founder member of the ICIJ Network Committee (INC). She has, to begin with, alone, and later led teams which have worked on ICIJ's Offshore Leaks, Swiss Leaks, the Pulitzer Prize winning Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, Implant Files, Fincen Files, Pandora Papers, the Uber Files and Deforestation Inc. She has conducted investigative journalism workshops and addressed investigative journalism conferences with a specialisation on collaborative journalism in several countries. ... Read More


Time of India
25 minutes ago
- Time of India
Guntur police arrest 9, recover 34 stolen bikes
1 2 3 4 5 6 Vijayawada: In a special drive against two-wheeler thefts, Guntur police recovered 34 stolen motorcycles worth Rs 25 lakh and arrested nine accused, including two minors. The thefts occurred across various police station limits in the district. According to SP Sateesh Kumar, the drive was launched following a spate of complaints filed by vehicle owners across different police station jurisdictions, particularly in areas such as Patabhipuram, Old Guntur, Nagarampalem, and Tadikonda. These areas reported a surge in two-wheeler thefts over the past few months. Based on complaints and available CCTV footage, as well as technical inputs and information on habitual offenders, the police detained several suspects and carried out intensive interrogations. This led to the identification of the accused and the recovery of the stolen vehicles. The recovered vehicles were traced and seized by police teams from East, West, Nallapadu, Tadikonda subdivisions, and the Crime Division. The arrested accused are identified as Akkisetti Akash (19), Uppu Rakesh (19), Madugula Ravi Teja (22), Shaik Asheeru (28), Kona Venkata Gopi (27), Tokala Rajesh (19), Boyapati Jayasai (21), and two minors. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Use an AI Writing Tool That Actually Understands Your Voice Grammarly Install Now Undo In addition to the accused, police identified individuals who purchased stolen two-wheelers: Mopidevi Revanth (20), Vishumolakala Koteshwar Rao, Manikanth, Seelam Yesu, Shaik Hussain, Kolla Yesubabu (26), Kottamassu Sai (35), and a minor boy. SP said the accused developed habits of substance abuse and targeted vehicles parked outside homes, marketplaces, hospitals, and religious places. Once stolen, these vehicles were used to roam freely and were occasionally employed to commit other petty crimes. SP emphasised that negligence by vehicle owners—especially parking in open areas without security measures—made the thefts easier for the offenders. In light of this, SP urged citizens to take precautions, including installing CCTV cameras, avoiding open-area parking, and using additional security features such as handle locks, wheel locks, and GPS tracking systems for their vehicles.