Two GHMC staffers arrested for finger print cloning, defrauding Rs. 86 lakh

HYDERABAD: The Central Zone Task Force of Hyderabad City Police has busted a fingerprint cloning racket in Hyderabad.

Acting on a tipoff, the team apprehended two sanitation sield sssistants of GHMC, Circle-XVI, Amberpet Division, Hyderabad. The accused, P. Shivaiah Umesh and J. Shivaram, illegally claimed the salaries of absent sanitation workers by using their cloned fingerprints.

During the operation, the police seized 35 cloning prints/thumb impressions and two bio-metric attendance devices from their possession.

Sanitation workers were found to press their thumb on a layer of candle wax and clone duplicate fingerprints using M-Seal, Fevicol, Dendrite glue, or wax to make a synthetic thumb impression.

The accused persons, who are working under GHMC Circle-XVI, Amberpet Division, Hyderabad, as Sanitary Field Assistants on a contract basis through Rupesh Educational Society for the last two years, have been supervising sanitation workers and recording daily attendance through biometric devices that GHMC authorities allotted to them. The device contains details of sanitation workers, and their attendance gets marked through thumb impressions by the said device.

The accused persons hatched a plan to illegally claim the wages of sanitation workers who were absent by cloning their thumb impressions. They have collected 35 thumb impressions of sanitation workers, of which 21 workers are working under Shivaiah Umesh and the remaining 14 are working under Shivaram. Several workers were not physically attending duties, but their attendance was being marked regularly.

The accused persons made the sanitation workers press their thumbs on a layer of candle wax and then pour Fevi Gum on it to capture the print. The layer of Fevi Gum, containing the worker's fingerprint, was pressed against the biometric scanner to record the attendance of the absentee.

The accused persons revealed that for the last two years, they have been doing illegal work, and daily 20 sanitation workers are absent for each shift, which is causing a loss to the GHMC department, approximately Rs 3.60 lakh per month, and Rs 43.20 lakh for 12 Months. Since both the respondents have been doing this mischief for the last two years, the total fraud comes to around Rs 86.40 lakh for two years.

About 900 sanitation field assistants are in 30 GHMC Circles in Hyderabad, and about 24,000 sweepers/Public Health Workers are working under the above SFAs.

The arrests were made under the supervision of DCP Task Force S Rashmi Perumal.