Hyderabad: A 38-year-old man was arrested and a fake educational consultancy racket busted by the Begumpet police with the help of task force officials on Thursday. The man, identified as Aragonda Aravind, 38, had established fake educational consultancies for the past three years at different places in the city.

He cheated students and their parents with false promises of providing admissions to BTech, MBBS, agriculture and veterinary courses in reputed colleges through management NRI quota, police said.




“He would lure the victims and ask them to pay between `5 lakh and `30 lakh as capitation fee for the required course. The accused is involved in at least 21 cases,” said P. Radhakishan Rao, deputy commissioner of police, Commissioner’s task force. Police seized `5.5 lakh, 11 computers, two printers, brochures of consultancy and other materials from him.

Aravind runs two more fake educational consultancies in the city apart from ‘Careers Gateway’ and ‘Apexe’ in Jubilee Hills and ‘Nobel and Global Educational Services’ in Punjagutta. The accused has an MTech degree. He worked as an assistant professor in various engineering colleges in and around Hyderabad and later started tuitions for BTech students at Old Bowenpally. In the process, he gained knowledge about the illegal activity of providing admissions in MBBS and engineering colleges for a commission.

In 2015, Aravind set up Apexe consultancy in Jubilee Hills and conned gullible students by fleecing money from them. “Nine cases were registered against him at Jubilee Hills police station by the victims. In 2016, he set up a base at Punjagutta and opened Global Educational Services and in 2017, Careers Gateway at Begumpet. After collecting money from victims, he vacated the office and fled the place,” said DCP Rao.

Task force officials nabbed him on Thursday based on prior information, and handed him over to Begumpet police. Further investigations are on to trace people who the accused cheated.