Four arrested for cheating Gujarat businessman of ₹27 lakh

Four men from Haryana arrested for cheating a businessman of ₹27 lakh by luring him into buying aluminium scrap. Accused posed as scrap dealers and fled with the money.

MUMBAI: Four men from Haryana were arrested on Wednesday for allegedly cheating a Gujarat-based businessman of ₹27 lakh by luring him into buying aluminium scrap.

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According to the police, on Monday, the complainant, Jagdish Sutar, 30, lodged a complaint against the accused identified as Ashokkumar Prajapati, 35, from Gurugram, Om Prakash Shukla, 50, from Thane, Dhamendra Kumar Singh, 54, and Shahbuddin Khan, 60, from Khopoli.

The accused had contacted Sutar posing as scrap dealers from Vasai and fixed a deal to deliver 15 tonnes of scrap at the rate of ₹157 per kg. They also contacted a scrap dealer in Vasai posing as buyers of scrap and made a deal with both.

When the scrap dealer in Vasai loaded the scrap and waited for payment, the four men approached Sutar and took ₹27 lakh from him. However, instead of making the payment to the scrap dealer, the four fled in a Swift car.

The Mandvi police traced three of the accused from Navi Mumbai and learned that the fourth accused, Shahbuddin Khan, had boarded a train to Delhi. With the help of the Government Railway Police, the Mandvi police arrested Khan in a running train and detained him at Nashik Railway station. The four were produced before the court on Thursday where they were remanded to police custody.