Kingpin of Prodigy scam, 3 aides held

HYDERABAD: The mastermind behind the Prodigy Solutions, the IT firm which duped over 1,100 job aspirants of more than Rs 4.15 crore and three of his associates were arrested by police on Monday. The main accused did not have basic qualification to run a software firm, police said.Prodigy Solutions was started by K Murali Krishna alias Murali Radhakrishna of Kothapet in December 2010. Initially, Murali Krishna started BPO services for a client, M/s ADT Security Alarm System with 40 employees on the sixth floor of Cyber Towers in Madhapur. Later, he recruited 20 more employees for an IT company and collected `50,000 from each candidate. He took a office for lease on the ninth floor of the Cyber Towers for setting up the IT company.Though he did not have any professional and managerial experience, Murali Krishna got the company registered as Prodigy (India) Software and Career Solutions Pvt Ltd. He started BPO operations and made people believe he was running a big IT firm," Cyberabad police commissioner Ch Dwaraka Tirumala Rao said.Police said Murali Krishna did not have any software project but collected huge amounts from aspiring candidates. "He misappropriated the collected money with help of one director of the company, T Ashok, who holds 10 per cent stake in the company,' Tirumala Rao said. Most of the money collected was spent away by the accused mindlessly on rental agreements, consultants commissions and others.Tirumala Rao said Murali Krishna completed his MA in English and worked as a lecturer in a private college during 1992. Later, he worked as a freelance consultant in colleges. For sometime, he also worked as a training manager in Max New York LIC at Vijayawada and Reliance Ltd in Visakhapatnam. Later, he started his own consultancy, STEP and recruited 15 employees for Genpact through a person, Abbas Ali Baig in August 2010. Later, it came to light the recruitment was done by fraudulent means and he had to pay back `13 lakh to Baig. As all his business plans failed, he decided to start a IT company with the help of Ashok, who earlier worked as HR executive in different firms at Hyderabad and Madras."Murali Krishna recruited 1,100 employees with assistance of consultantscumemployees, Sanjay alias Suresh, Vasanth, Sumanth, Srikar and others. An amount of Rs 4.15 crore was collected and candidates given training in various computer courses. He also opened branches in Hanumkonda and Visakhapatnam,' Tirumala Rao said.Police said Prodigy solutions did not get any project except for two BPO operations. Apart from Murali Krishna, police arrested Krishna, Sumanth and Srikar on Monday.