Three members of a gang have been arrested for lying to people online. The gang urged the customers to buy packaging materials in bulk and then vanished into thin air, after taking advance from them, officials shared on Monday.
The names of the accused are Jitendra Kumar Chauhan (35), Parmar Dilipbhai (47) and Pawar Shyam (44), all residents of Ahmedabad, they said.
The whole case gained attention in February after Nitin Jain who is from northeast Delhi, booked a complaint against Avani Packing and Mica, the fake company run by the gang. The complaint said that Nitin responded to an online advertisement for adhesives and ordered a sample.
The price of the adhesive was attractive and the quality of the sample was good. Contended with the sample, Nitin placed a bulk order to that firm and paid Rs 3,89,400 in advance on February 19.
But, no delivery of the order was made to the customer and all phone numbers given by the company were found to be switched off.
An inquiry conducted by the police team, confirmed all the payment details from the respective banks. It was known that the entire amount was withdrawn by the hoodwinker through a cheque on the same day.
The DCP said that, using technology, the location of mobile phones was quickly found out and, accordingly, a case was registered on June 24, under section 420 of the Indian Penal Code.
On July 22, a police team found the fake firm in Ahmedabad. A raid took place in the Madopur police station area in Ahmedabad and Pawar Shyam was captured. He confessed to his crime during interrogation and also gave information about two of his associates, who were then also arrested.
They confessed that they had also got their company registered with the GST to make the company appear more trustworthy. The entire process went about this-the gang would advertise themselves as handling the business of bulk supply of packaging material at cheap rates. If someone showed interest, they would give them a sample at a cheap rate in order to lure them. Later, when the customer would ask for those items in bulk, they would ask them to pay in advance and vanish.
The mobile numbers used by them were switched off as they broke the SIM cards.
One of the accused, Shyam was also found in a previous case of cheating which was registered at Bari Brahmana in Jammu and Kashmir, said the records at a local police station in Ahmedabad.
Five mobile phones and nine SIM cards, 13 ATM cards of different banks, eight cheque books, two passbooks and other related documents were also seized.
