A 29-year-old man was arrested on the charges of impersonating a senior bureaucrat and cheating people of crores of rupees on the pretext of procuring licences for petrol pumps, gas agencies and house allotments, The Hindu reports.

The arrested is identified as Sampath Kumar Surappagari, a resident of Ammapur in Telangana’s Mehboobnagar.

Malipaddi Sandeep, a resident of Hyderabad, told them that he was approached by one K. Ramaswamy, who said his nephew Surappagari is a senior bureaucrat and is posted in New Delhi. He also told Sandeep that the nephew could get licences approved for Bharat Petroleum and Bharat Gas.

“Sandeep was asked to pay Rs 1.8 crore for the licences. He was also told to come to Delhi to apply for the licences,” said DCP (Crime Branch) Ram Gopal Naik, elaborating on a plot deployed by Sampath Kumar to deceive people.

Following this, the victim transferred Rs 1.40 crore to the accused’s bank account, upon being assured that he would get the licences by the end of August 2017.

A year later, the accused told Sandeep that the work could not be completed and issued cheques to the victim. When the cheques bounced and the victim warned about taking legal recourse, the accused threatened him that if he complained to the police, he would send his PSOs and get him killed.

The accused had come to Delhi to prepare for civil services examination. As he could not pass the exam, the accused started publishing a daily newspaper from Karol Bagh. He was earlier arrested thrice in Hyderabad.