VIJAYAWADA: In an interesting turn of events, a woman who claimed to be a kidnap victim turned out to be the brains behind a gold smuggling and cheating racket here. PS Nagamani cheated people, mostly employees of railways, to the tune of Rs 7 crore. According to sources in police department, the number of victims is likely to increase. Meanwhile, most of the victims are not coming forward and lodge complaint as they dealt with unaccounted money.
Nagamani lodged a complaint against two railway ticket inspectors alleging that they kidnapped her about four days ago. Acting on her complaint, police launched an investigation. But the plot was exposed when the ticket inspectors were questioned by the police.
According to sources, Nagamani is in a relationship with one Venkateswara Rao working as chief ticket inspector (CTI) in Vijayawada railway division. She lured people, mostly employees of railways, offering them Rs 5 lakh worth gold for just Rs 4 lakh. She assured them of returning Rs 5 lakh if she could not deliver gold a month after the payment.
Nagamani gained the trust of the victims by claiming that she has connections in Saudi Arabia and routes gold from there via Singapore. She even delivered gold to some of them but from the past four months, she neither gave gold nor returned money.
Recently, two of the railway employees who gave money to Nagamani demanded their money back. There was a heated exchange of words between them. Later, Nagamani lodged a complaint against the employees alleging that they kidnapped her in a bid to escape from paying the money. However, the police investigation revealed the entire story behind the complaint.
As the news broke, more victims started to approach police alleging she has also cheated them after promising gold.
Police are also examining the role of Venkateswara Rao and one A Raghavendra Rao both employees of railways in the scam. According to sources, Rao visited Qatar in 2018 along with the Indian sports team as part of Asian Games. He allegedly established some contacts for gold smuggling and started working with Nagamani and Venkateswara Rao. The trio have been running the racket since 2018 and have done several transactions, said sources.
M Venkateswarlu, Vijayawada south ACP, said they are still investigating the case to find out all the victims and the amount involved in the scam. Nagamani’s Saudi connections are also being probed, he said. No arrest has been made yet.
