The accused, including the manager of a showroom, misused documents to dupe finance company for several lakh on sale of goods, in a complex scandal
If you are planning to avail a loan, be wary before handing over your documents to agents. The Kasturba Marg police have arrested seven people for misusing documents and later duping finance company Bajaj Finance to the tune of several lakh.
Viraj Ambure (24) is said to be the mastermind behind the scam
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One of the arrested accused is a manager of a showroom called Reliance Mini Store, located at Carter Road in Borivli (East), Viraj Ambure (24). He hired the rest of the accused as agents, who brought the customers to him. They have been identified as Mahesh Vasant Dhumal (32), Rajesh Ashok Patel (36), Sunil Kamal Singh (38) and Satya Parkash Verma (28).
Police also arrested two consumers, Suresh Vishwakarma (31) and Vinod Singh (22), who were in the know and purchased an LCD television on loan, and later sold it to a shopkeeper and took the cash in return.
Devious plan
According to police sources, some people had purchased TVs, mobiles and air conditioners from the finance company, but were not paying the Equated Monthly Installments (EMIs). When the company officials visited their residences, they were shocked to know that these ‘customers’ had not taken any loan, neither had they purchased anything.
Then there were some people who purchased electronic gadgets from Reliance Mini Store, but when company officials visited the addresses, there was no one residing in these places as mentioned in the documents. The financial company has a list of 39 people, who purchased items from Reliance Mini Store, but never paid an EMI.
On September 11, company officials approached the Kasturba Marg police, gave a written complaint, and requested an inquiry. When the police started the investigation, it came to light that the manager Ambure along with his four agents, had cheated Bajaj Finance to the tune of several lakh rupees.
The investigating officer of the case, assistant police inspector Bharat Ghone along with police sub-inspector Nitin Sawant, said that Ambure had kept some agents on a commission basis, who used to bring customers along, who wanted any personal loans.
The accused used to take a copy of their identification proof, and add fake documents and later acquired a loan for mobiles, TVs, ACs, washing machines, etc. After the loans got sanctioned, they used to sell the items in the market and used the money to give it to those who needed a personal loan.
The money was then distributed between the accused. In the inquiry, it also came to light that the accused misused documents of those people, who had never taken a loan, by submitting a bogus application in their names.
Senior police inspector Suhas Raikar informed mid-day that this racket was very huge. “Till now, we have received complaints of 39 people, but the list can reach above 100. In this case, the manager is the mastermind, who used to send the documents to the finance company to sanction the loans,” said Raikar.
“This is the first time that a customer too has been arrested in a fraud case because he knew everything, but still he gave his documents to get misused. On September 13, we arrested the manager along with six others under section 420 of the Indian Penal Code.
More people can be arrested in this case,” Raikar added. Police have recovered five LCD TVs and one AC. The accused have been remanded to police custody till September 16.
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