Channel partners at Mumbai's Lamington Road have recently managed to hand over two fraudsters to the police. These two culprits are alleged to be a part of a group, which has reportedly cheated partners of Rs 40 lakh. 

Modus Operandi
The entire game begun, when a dealer named Rohit Parekh started trading with some partners at Lamington Road, almost eight months ago. He even had his organization named 'Satellite Computers' at Bhandup. According to partners, he always cleared his payments on time and no problems have been accounted with his cheques, which he issued till the end of November. 

However his cheques started bouncing a few weeks later and he was reportedly absconding. When the affected partners visited Rohit's office, they found that the office was taken on rent and there was no trace of Rohit or his company there.

The cheques issued by Rohit were from the Indus Bank in Lamington Road. Umang Mehta, the spokesperson for Trade Association of Information Technology (TAIT), Mumbai said, “While tracking Rohit's bank account, we discovered that the account, from which he issued the cheques was in the name of Bharat Mali. The account was running in the negative balance, because of the cheques bouncing. To track the entire chain, we looked into the transactions of the account and discovered that the account had regular cash payments from another account, a dealer by the name of Hardana Bishnoy. The bank also informed us that few days ago Bishnoy's account had been closed.”

According to the market sources, Bishnoy started his business around three years back with 'Ramdev Infotech'. After doing business for few months, Ramdev went bankrupt and Bishnoy had to close down his shop. However Bishnoy re-opened his shop after few months with a new name--Sun Infosys. When DQ Week tried to contact him, this mobile number was 'not reachable'. 

Umang said, “When we searched for Bishnoy, he was absconding. So we caught hold of his brother Kalu Bishnoy, who was working for a Lamington Road-based dealer, Kachora Infosys.” According to him, some of the products, which Rohit had purchased from several dealers at Lamington Road, were discovered at Kachora's godown. 

Umang added, “We helped the police to track the goods, which Rohit had purchased from the dealers at Lamington road and police have now sealed the godown. Later on Kalu revealed names of few more people who were involved in this racket. Based on this information, Kachora has now been taken into police custody.” 

When DQ Week tried establishing contact on Kachora's mobile number, a lady answered the call and refused to comment anything about the matter.

Who are the victims?
According to Mehta, TAIT has received the names of around 15 partners, who have been cheated by Rohit. A few more names are likely to be added to this list as word gets around. 

Modi Peripherals is such victim of this racket. Speaking about the loss, Samir Joshi, Marketing Executive, Modi Peripherals, said, “We have been cheated of an amount of Rs 5 lakh. We were dealing with Rohit since six months. If such kind of incidents continues to happen, then we will have to close down our business!”

Similarly Pacific Infotech was reportedly cheated of Rs 4 lakh. Suresh Chhatlani, CEO of Suresh Computers, added, “To prevent these type of incidents, we are now planning to issue a certain type of form, which the new dealers need to fill. Here dealers will have to furnish their permanent addresses.” 

What is police doing?
Although an FIR complaint has been registered with the Lamington Road police station and two persons are taken into custody, partners feel that police is not solving this case at a fast pace. One partner, on the condition of anonymity, said, “The police is not proceeding at a steady pace for this issue.”

When DQ Week tried to contact Suresh Deshpande, the Inspector at Lamington Road, who is in charge of the case, he said, “We have received orders from our head office not to comment anything on this matter.”

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