Indore (Madhya Pradesh): Four men including three from Surat were arrested by the crime branch for duping some cloth merchants of crores of rupees on the pretext of buying goods from them, police said on Saturday.
First, they paid money to the complainants to gain their trust. Later, they bought clothes worth Rs 91 lakh from some traders and fled from the city after closing the shops. They allegedly confessed to have duped 9 other traders from Gujarat and Mumbai.
The accused first hired two shops on rent in the city and managed to get a GST number. After buying cloth from the merchants, the accused fled the city and went to Surat.
DCP (crime) Nimish Agrawal said that Sumeer Kinra, a resident of Surat and the owner of a firm in Surat, Shubham Vaidya and other traders lodged a complaint with the crime branch that they were duped of Rs 91 lakh by the owners of two firms in the city.
They stated in the complaint that the accused had bought goods from them but did not pay money for the goods and fled after closing the shops.
The crime branch started an investigation and found that the accused had hired two shops in the city and had updated shops’ addresses in the documents.
The shops were opened with the name DK Trading Company and Balaji Enterprises and they also got the GST numbers for their trade. A case under sections 406, 409, 420 and 34 of the IPC was registered and the investigation was started into the case.
During the investigation, the crime branch gathered information about the accused and managed to arrest them. The accused were identified as Arvind Pandey, Laxmikant, Devi Prasad Upadhyay, the residents of Surat and Chetan Jain a resident of the Aerodrome area of the city.
The accused informed the police that accused Devi Prasad lives in Surat and he met other accused there. They later planned to start trading in Indore and opened two shops in the Tilakpath area and Imli Bazar area. They updated their address on their Aadhaar Card. The crime branch officials are questioning the accused.
