Fake educational certificates racket busted, 6 held

PNS|Hyderabad

The Special Operations Team (SOT) Madhapur Zone, along with Miyapur police busted a fake education certificate racket and arrested a gang of six members. The gang had prepared fake certificates of Mahatma Gandhi University of Meghalaya. The police seized 157 sets of mark sheets, 11 convocation files, eight registered envelopes. nine laptops, seven phones, four stamps, ID cards and prospectus of the university, Rs 50,000 cash and Rs 37.45 lakh amount in the bank account of the accused persons.

The complainant Shaik Khaja Nayab Rasool stated that about four months back he came to Hyderabad and stayed in Madhapur. He wanted to pursue degree and he asked for suggestions from a known person named Prem Kumar, upon which Prem said that he knows a person named Sharma who runs a consultancy.

When the complainant contacted Sharma, he was informed that persons named Akhilesh and Praveen from MG University, Meghalaya, will help in conducting an online exam for BSc course. Further, Prem stated that he will require all of his educational certificates, ID proofs and a fee of Rs 2.1 lakh.

The complainant, getting lured in the trap, transferred the money online to Prem and after a few days, he received memos of MG University from academic year 2014-16 on his Whatsapp. Later, when he verified the certificates, he found out that the memos are fake.

Based on this complaint, the team apprehended Prem Kumar and Sharma and found that till now the accused provided more than 430 fake certificates to various candidates. Sharma, during interrogation, confessed that he has been running a SS University Centre Consultancy business at Mettuguda since 10 years. He contacted many innocent students through Sujatha, who works as a telecaller with them from 2012. So far, they have provided fake certificates to more than 430 people and collected an amount ranging from Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 2.5 lakh from each student.