Telangana: Police bust inter-state fuel pilfering gang, 13 held

Ranga Reddy (Telangana) [India], September 6 (ANI): At least 13 people were arrested after Cyberabad and Nandigama police busted an inter-state gang for allegedly tampering with the fuel dispensing machines installed at several petrol pumps in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
The security personnel have seized 14 ICs (chips), eight displays, three GBR cable's, a motherboard, a Hyundai i20 car from one of the accused identified as Subhani Basha. He worked as a fuel station pump mechanic for more than 10 years in East and West Godavari districts.
This sort of tampering with the fuel machines was causing loss of crore of rupees of public money in the states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

According to the police, the fraudsters used to install the IC's only in one fuel pump out of two. For filling fuel in vehicles, manipulated pumps were used and to fill in plastic bottles, cans, regular pumps were used which did not have manipulated chips, so that the public do not know about the fraud.

"In 2018, across the country, new software was installed in all fuel stations. This gang started installing IC's since 2019. For almost more than 1 year, they have been indulging in this cheating. On September 5 and 6, joint raids were conducted by Cyberabad Police and Telangana State Legal Metrology officials in Telangana," the statement from the police read.

The information related to cheating and irregularities has been shared with the concerned Fuel Corporations - Indian Oil Corporation Ltd, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd, and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd.

To prevent such large scale cheating and irregularities, these corporations have been alerted to be more vigilant in future. (ANI)