Jul 29, 2019
Thane crime branch officers have arrested two people who cheated farmers by taking their farm produce and never paid them.
Photo by Prashant narvekar
The crime branch officials said the two accused had cheated around 606 farmers from Karnataka, Kolhapur and Konkan by promising them lucrative returns on their produce of Kaju (Cashews), but
later they did not pay anything to the farmers.
According to Thane Crime Branch senior inspector Nitin Thakare, after receiving the information that Deepak Kumar Patel alias Amit Kumar Asnani and Sumitkumar Asnani alias Mahesh
Gyanchandani both traders had formed a fake company called as Ashtavinayak Trading company in Highland Mall in Kapurbawdi, Thane with the simple motive of cheating farmers, the crime branch
detained them.
“We received the information that the two were taking Cashew produce from farmers and not paying them.
They have cheated around 600 farmers to the tune of Rs 3 crore-Rs 5 crore,” said a police
official.
On the information, the police team managed to trace Patel in Ahmedabad and later Asnani in Kutch.
After cheating the farmers, they had sold the Kaju produce to another trader and fled with the money.
They had started purchase of Kaju on the pretext of Diwali from farmers last year and later shut
the shop in the rented premises and fled.
“One by one we traced the accused and later we found that they had sold the produce through two agents and five traders.
All of them are arrested. We have recovered valuables worth Rs 2.5 crore
including around 2234 boxes of Kajus from them,” Sandeep Bagul, assistant police inspector of Thane crime branch said.
They have been booked for cheating, forgery and conspiracy said the police.
“They initially paid me some money but later their cheque bounced.
We as farmers did not have any hopes despite registering a case with Karnataka police as the cheating had happened in
November when cashews are high in demand for Diwali gifts.
But finally, the police has given us some hope with the arrests,” Raju Patil a farmer from Belgaum, said.
By Vinay Dalvi
No comments:
Post a Comment