Two held for cheating car buyers and sellers online

The city police have arrested two men for allegedly duping customers wanting to sell or buy cars online, police said on Friday.

A senior official of the crime branch said the accused duped several people for lakhs of rupees, but the exact amount is yet to be ascertained.

The arrested duo was identified as Rohit Rajendrakumar Dhavan alias Prithvi Amin (30) from Vasai and Rumit Jaiprakash Shah (35) from Bhayander, he said.

"A racket was being run by the duo since long. They made use of a leading online portal for cheating the people who wanted to sell or buy cars," DCP (Crime) Deepak Deoraj said.

"Dhavan, who is the main accused in the case, is an MCom and had a good job in a reputed company. But he wanted to become rich quickly. He adopted a modus operandi under which he and his accomplice looked for such people who wanted to sell their cars with outstanding loans," he said.

"They would purchase such cars at throwaway prices assuring to make the payment of the balance loan amount. Then they would look for similar cars put on sale online and copy their registration and other details. Based on that information, they would create fake documents of the vehicles they had purchased and then sell those cars at a higher price," the official said.

According to police, the accused would also create fake documents like smart-cards, Aadhaar and PAN cards to change their own identity and dupe the unsuspecting customers.

The Kapurbawdi police have booked the duo under IPC sections 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 406 (criminal breach of trust), 465 (forgery), 467 (forgery of valuable security), 468 (forgery of valuable security, will, etc) and others.

"So far we have recovered two cars from them and four more are likely to be recovered soon," he said, adding that further investigation into the case is on.