The accused, Y Sreelatha, had opened a Facebook account under the name Sridevi Tummala. She masqueraded as the producer for the TV channel and siphoned money from aspiring TV and movie actors.
"She admitted that she regularly watched Telugu serials and was impressed by TV artists Nishama, Sirisha, Karuna and others. While watching a TV serial during July 2018, she saw the name of Sridevi Tummala as a producer of ETV Telugu. She got an idea of opening a Facebook account in the name of 'Sridevi Tummala' and interact with aspirants, who wanted to become television or movie artists. She used to collect money from them and thus led a luxurious life," the police's statement read, according to ANI.
The police went on to explain that the woman impersonated the TV producer and went on to send friend requests to popular TV actors such as Nishama, Sirisha, Karuna and spoke to them regularly via the social media website.
Soon, many aspirants began contacting her and asked her for help to enter the industry. She promised to give them a chance and took money in return. She had the unsuspecting aspirants to transfer money to her bank accounts and lived a luxurious lifestyle with the money.
At one point, she got a man to fall in love with her and got him to deposit Rs 6 lakh in her account over a period of time.
"She sent a friend request to one Kranthi Kumar of Manikonda and developed a close friendship with him through Facebook messaging and sent photos of some other woman. He believed and fell in love with Sreelatha by seeing those fake pictures. She took advantage of this and made him pay an amount of Rs. 6,00,000 in her bank account at different times," the police said.
However, this is not Sreelatha's first offence. She was arrested by the Hyderabad cybercrime department for allegedly committing matrimonial fraud.
