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Car designer’s firm took loans to buy their own vehicles by posing as customers: Mumbai crime branch
Preliminary probe has revealed that loans averaging ₹42 lakh per car had been availed by the firm
The Mumbai crime branch, which is probing the cheating case against famous car designer Dilip Chhabria, has found that his firm had availed loans from some non-banking financial companies (NBFC) by posing as customers wanting to buy sports cars manufactured by the group itself.
Preliminary probe has revealed that loans averaging ₹42 lakh per car had been availed by the firm, Dilip Chhabria (DC) Designs Pvt Ltd, on about 90 of the total 120 cars sold by it. In some cases, loans had even been availed after selling the vehicles to their buyers.
Chhabria was arrested on Monday and has been remanded to police custody till January 2.
Assistant police inspector Sachin Vaze of the criminal intelligence unit (CIU) had received a tip-off about a two-seater sports car – DC Avanti – plying towards south Mumbai on a bogus registration number. A trap was laid and the car was spotted in Colaba on December 18. The vehicle was taken into custody. The police learnt that the car was registered in Chennai and the owner had submitted the original documents, which were later found to be genuine, said a crime branch officer.
Further probe, however, revealed that another car with the same engine and chassis number had been registered in Haryana.
According to police, Chhabria had manufactured 127 DC-Avanti cars in the past four years, of which the firm had sold 120 in India. The crime branch suspects that 90 such cars were found to be registered with the same engine, chassis number in different states, under different registration numbers, said joint commissioner of police (crime branch) Milind Bharambe.
“We will probe why NBFCs didn’t complain when the loans were not repaid. We’ll also have to see how the regional transport departments didn’t notice that the same engine and chassis numbers were used to register different vehicles across cities with different registration numbers,” said the crime branch officer.
“We are also verifying if there is any quantum of loss caused by the accused by not paying the applicable taxes such as custom duties and GST (goods and services tax) etc,” said Bharambe.
DC Designs Pvt Ltd was incorporated on June 14, 1993, and the sports car, DC -Avanti, was launched in 2016 after a formal certification by Automotive Research Association of India in March 2015. The sports car was manufactured at a plant in Pune district.
