Karimnagar, May 19: The Peddapalli police on Wednesday cracked a fake certificate racket and arrested 20 members involved in it.
According to District Superintendent of Police N Shivashankar Reddy, the police arrested Bayyapu Ram Reddy, the kingpin of the racket and 15 others based on a complaint filed by the local Tahsildar on April 29.
Ram Reddy (33) belongs to Kamanpur mandal and owns Sunny Internet Centre and Colour Xerox in Peddapalli.
He supplied fake certificates to people in need through mediators. The police found that the 20-member gang lured poor people into making the fake certificates like SSC, Intermediate, Degree, Polytechnic and ITI certificates and even election photo identity cards.
The police seized 17 fake certificates, four ration cards, 51 ration and EPIC cards, 12 SSC memos and four intermediate memos.
They arrested Muthyam Thirupathi (50), Gundeti Odelu (32), Goli Thirupathi (38), Mallethula Venkatesh (29), Yellenki Swamy (33), Komera Nani (37), Md Asif (20), Vemula Murali (30), Bollempalli Ashok (27), Kalvala Santhoshram (26), Budida Kumar (30), Koutam Srinivas (29), Santhapuri Ravinder (27), Santhapuri Srinivas(27) who belong to Ramangundam, Kamanpur and Peddapalli mandals.
Two home guards suspected to be a part of the racket are absconding.
Cases were registered under section 468 (forgery), section 472 (making or possessing counterfeit seal) and section 420 (cheating) against all of them.
–Agencies