New Delhi, Jul 4 (PTI) A 48-year-old man who had contested the 2014 assembly elections in Telangana was arrested for allegedly indulging in fraud and using the cheated amount to finance his election campaign, police said in a statement on Tuesday.

A case was registered against accused Sidhartha Reddy on the complaint of a firm based in Delhi's Nehru Place with the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Delhi Police, it said.

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Police said that Reddy, proprietor of Sidhartha Impex, represented himself as a seller and supplier of iron ore and entered into a contract with the complainant and induced the victim party to pay Rs 6.57 crore as part payment for supply of iron ore but he did not supply the order.

Reddy was absconding since the case filed against him was declared as a "Proclaimed Offender" by a Delhi court in 2021 and a reward of Rs 50,000 was also declared on his arrest, they added.

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"Using technical surveillance, the accused was nabbed from Hyderabad and during interrogation, he disclosed that he had spent the cheated amount to contest assembly elections in Telangana in 2014, where he was the runner-up," a senior police officer said.

According to the police statement, in the complaint, the director of the firm alleged that his company had procured a confirmed international order to export 50,000 metric tons of iron ore from India to China and in this regard, he was looking for some Indian sellers and traders who could provide the requisite quantity for export.

Reddy visited Delhi and assured the complainant that he will supply iron ore and a USD 6,000,000 contract was signed.

According to the contract, the complainant paid Rs 6.57 crore as part payment for supplying iron ore. However, the accused neither provided the iron ore nor refunded the money to the complainant company.

The accused, instead, made bogus claims that the iron ore was lying in the warehouse in Vizag, whereas he had no such warehouse. In total, Reddy caused a loss of more than Rs 9 crore to the complainant, it said.

"During the investigation, scrutiny of the bank statement of the accused company revealed that the money transferred from the complainant was withdrawn in cash and on verification from the office of the Principal Commissioner of Customs, Port Area, Visakhapatnam, it was informed that no warehouse was ever booked by the accused company for storing iron ore at Visakhapatnam," the senior police officer said.

Reddy started his business as a railway contractor. Later on, he took an interest in politics and also started indulging in trading iron ore on a small scale in Hyderabad, Ramgarh and Visakhapatnam, police said.

He opened a proprietorship firm Sidhartha Impex and induced the complainant to obtain a contract for the supply of iron ore and duped the complainant, police added.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)