Video Showing Gold Recovery From Raid On TTD Board Member Shekher Reddy’s House is Fake

Vellore’s DIG confirmed to us that the video shows the recovered jewellery by the police after the robbery. The video has no relation with Mr. J. Shekar Reddy.

A video showing several gold jewellery, gold biscuits and other precious metals including cash displayed on a table is widely circulating on social media. In the video, one can see police officers along with other officials standing near the table.

Users claim that these jewellery and cash was seized after an IT raid in the house and the farmhouse of Mr. J. Shekar Reddy who is one of the 17 trustees of Tirupati Tirumala Temple. The post further claims that the IT department seized Rs. 106 crores in cash, 127 kg gold biscuits and 60 crores worth diamonds.

What is written in the post?

The caption in the viral post mentions, “Dear friends, this is Mr J .Shekar Reddy, one of the 17 trustees of Tirupati Tirumala Temple. IT officers raided his house and farmhouse. Rs 106 crores in cash was seized along with 127 kg gold biscuits, diamonds worth 60 crores! Dear Tirupati Tirumala Bhaktas, Your Donation Fund and Gold is with J. Shekar Reddy. Please see how smart and good-looking, he is, the Tirupati Tirumala Temple Trustee, IT officers raided his home, he was caught with ₹ 106 Crore net cash and 127Kg Gold and ₹ 10 Cr worth New 2000 rupee notes. What about other 16 trustees of TTD?  Think before you donate! Either it is used for conversion or for personal benefits.”

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Fact Check- 

We started our investigation by running a keyword search on YouTube, which led us to a video of the press conference uploaded by a YouTube channel named Tamil Galata.

According to the video, Tamil Nadu’s Vellore police seized 15 kgs of stolen gold, whose information was given by conducting a press conference. 

We found the word “joyalukkas” written on the video above. Keeping this in mind, we ran a keyword search on Google. From the results, we found that there is a big jewellery showroom in Vellore named Joyalukkas Jewellery. 

We found a report aired on 23 December on a channel named Vikatan TV reports that 15.9 kg of gold and diamonds worth 8 crores were stolen from a jewellery showroom in Vellore.

Vellore police arrested one person from a place called Odugathur. During interrogation, the accused told the police that he conducted the theft by watching YouTube videos.

In addition, we found a news by The Hindu published on December 21. According to the report, in this case, 23-year-old a criminal named T.K Raman was arrested from his house in Odugathur village. He had buried the stolen jewellery under the ground. North Vellore Police have registered a case.

The criminal continued making a hole in the wall of the jewellery showroom for a week and then one day we entered the showroom through the hole and robber the jewellery.

Next, Fact Crescendo contacted the DIG of Vellore, Mr. A.G Babu who confirmed to us that the claim made along with the viral image is Fake. The viral video is related to the gold theft jewellery seized in Vellore. This video has no related with Mr J .Shekar Reddy.

Was there a raid at J .Shekar Reddy’s house?

In the year 2016, the Income Tax Department raided the then member of Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam Board and industrialist J. Shekar Reddy ‘s place. They seized about 127 kg of gold and Rs 170 crore in cash from his residence and office in Chennai and Vellore.

The CBI arrested him in the year 2018. Then in the year 2019, the Income Tax Department concluded that the confiscated money was received from the sale of sand by his firm SRS Mining. In the year 2020, the CBI had declared that they have not found any evidence against Mr. J. Shekar Reddy.

J. Shekar Reddy hails from Thondan Tulsi village in Katpadi, Tamil Nadu. He started his business in Vellore about 15 years ago by doing small scale contracting. 

Conclusion-

Fact Crescendo found the claim made along with the viral video on social media to be False. The viral video originally shows the jewellery and cash recovered by the Vellore police, which were stolen from a jewellery shop.

The video has no relation with the raids conducted by the IT department at J. Shekar Reddy’s house. 

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