22 November,2010 06:40 AM IST | | Manjunath L Hanji
Duo arrested for buying 55 bikes on loan using fake documents and selling them cheap to gullible buyers
Friday marked the end of the road for two city-based conmen who hatched and carried out an ingenious plan of duping a motorcycle company and several buyers by taking bikes on loan and selling them off cheaply.
Nabbed: The duo was planning to start an automobile shop in Goa.
Cops recovered Rs 8 lakh from them
The duo had procured as many as 55 two-wheelers worth Rs 30 lakh on loan on the basis of fake documents and had then sold them to gullible buyers. The con came to light when the buyers, who did not know that the bikes were on loan, had them seized by the company for failing to pay the first installment.
S Raghavendra (33) and H Premkumar (28) worked in the same company and decided to leave their jobs to start a business when they became close friends. They started a successful two-wheeler spare parts shop at Laggere in the city, but began neglecting it and took to alcohol.
Loans piled up in the meantime and they had to sell their shop to pay off debtors.u00a0They decided to make money by conning people when getting food and alcohol became a problem. They knew loopholes in the procedure for buying bikes on loan and picked up 55 bikes by attaching fake documents with loan application forms.
The bikes were subsequently sold to buyers who were attracted by the cheap rates and 'original' documents.
The buyers' happiness proved short-lived, however, when the company ordered the seizure of the bikes because the first installment was overdue.
Authorities at the company were also surprised to know that the bikes had already been sold by the original buyers.
By the time a case was filed in this regard, Raghavendra and Premkumar had fled to Goa. The police commissioner transferred the case to the crime branch, which arrested the duo. They were planning to start an automobile shop in Goa and Rs 8 lakh was recovered from them.
ACP SH Duggappa of the Fraud and Misappropriation Squad said, "They had been cheating people for the last seven months and a total of 55 vehicles were sold off by them in this way. They have been remanded to judicial custody."
