Four persons were today arrested for allegedly cheating the Employee's State Insurance Corporation (ESI) to the tune of Rs 2 crore by submitting fake medical bills of non-existing pharma companies, police said.

G Vishal Chaitanya alias Venu, who is an employee in ESI Regional Office in Adarshnagar, is a prime accused in the case. He conspired with four others to form two fictitious pharma companies and without supplying drugs created forged medical bills and got issued cheques for varied amounts during January-May 2011, Hyderabad Police Commissioner A K Khan told reporters.

"Venu, who is working as assistant to State Medical Commissioner, also prepared fake bills and submitted them to claim money fraudulently by creating fictitious drug firms," he said.

Venu along with two other accused, Wahid and Srinivas Reddy, conspired to misuse the process of sanctioning of bills to pharma companies and floated two fictitious firms--United Medical Pharma Services and  Ajay Pharma and Medical Services. He and Wahid prepared fake purchase orders as issued by ESI Hospital located in Sanath Nagar for supply of medicines by the two non-existing firms, the police chief said.

"The accused submitted bills to State Medical Commissioner and Venu cleared the cheques and facilitated the grant of cheques by deceiving the sanctioning authorities," Khan said, adding after obtaining the cheques the accused withdrew the amount from bank accounts.

Tags: duping case, Employee's State Insurance Corporation, four held, hyderabad, Rs 2 crore