Five states, jobs including godman and loan recovery agent; V Chalapathi Rao who scammed 50 lakhs from SBI caught after 22 years

CHENNAI: An ex-employee who went on the run after scamming Rs 50 lakh from SBI has been arrested after 22 years. V Chalapathi Rao was arrested. He had also stolen Rs 70 lakh from the ashram where he was hiding. The CBI arrested the person who was declared dead by the court.

He was arrested from Narasinganallur village in Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu. The accused has already changed his phone number ten times. He had planned to escape by sea to Sri Lanka. Rao was produced in court and remanded till August 16.

The CBI had registered a case against Chalapathi Rao in May 2002. The case was that he scammed Rs 50 lakh while working as a computer operator in SBI's Chandulal Biraji branch in Hyderabad. He scammed money by creating fake quotations of electronic shops and fake salary certificates in the name of family members and close friends. The CBI filed two charge sheets on December 31, 2004.

Later, his wife lodged a complaint with the Hyderabad police saying that Rao, who was absconding, was missing. She is also accused in the fraud case. After seven years of Rao's disappearance, his wife had asked the civil court to declare him dead. The order was issued by the civil court in Hyderabad.

However, Chalapati Rao, who went on the run, came to Salem in 2007 and changed his name to M Vineeth Kumar and married a woman there. He left Salem in 2014 and came to Bhopal. He worked there as a loan recovery agent. From there he came to Rudrapur in Uttarakhand and worked in a school.

In 2016, he left Rudrapur and reached an ashram in Verul village in Aurangabad. From there he got an Aadhaar card with the name of Swami Vidhitatmanand Teertha. Rao stole Rs 70 lakh from the ashram before moving to Rajasthan's Bharatpur. He was arrested after reaching Tirunelveli on July 8 this year.