Banjara Hills police on Thursday arrested the Audi car thief in Bangalore, who was wanted in 23 cases in seven states. The accused spent all the money in horse racing and IPL betting, said police.Notorious for his modus operandi in cheating people, Samanasa Venkata Ramana (29)had committed 83 offences so far. Despite his arrest twice at Parvathipuram in 2009 and Guntur in 2015, he escaped from police custody.
He changed 47 mobiles and sim cards in six years, to avoid police vigil. Currently, he is wanted by the police of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, and six non-bailable warrants were
pending against him, west zone DCP A Venkateshwar Rao said at a press conference here on Thursday.
The DCP said the interrogation revealed that Ramana had established a fake company ‘PHAV Software Technologies’ at SR Nagar in 2007 and cheated 230 job aspirants to a tune of Rs 2.5 crore.
The DCP said that sometimes, Ramana posed as son or relative of MLAs and MPs or as a doctor approached the dealers of automobiles and fled away with the cars on the pretext of taking a test drive. He used to place advertisements in newspapers for sale of the cars and escaped after collecting huge amounts as advance from the unsuspecting customers.