Mumbai man among 3 held for duping 27 in Ahmedabad

AHMEDABAD: Kagdapith police on Saturday detained three men for duping 27 businessmen of New Cloth Market of crores.
The accused are Manohar Lalwani of Mumbai, and Ajay Murlidhar and Irfan Ansari of Sardarnagar in Ahmedabad. Police officials said that the accused set up bogus companies, won the businessmen’s confidence, acquired cloth on credit, and thereafter vanished without paying.
Senior police officials said that the 27 businessmen had first lodged three complaints in 2019. But police suspect that the trio has cheated more than 70 businessman over the past four years. Inspector M A Singh of the Kagdapith police station said that the accused have been booked under the Indian Penal Code’s Sections 406 (breach of trust) and 420 (cheating) among others. According to senior police officials,Murlidhar and Ansari created bogus companies using the documents of poor people. The trio promised a certain sum of money every month for providing the documents. “So far, it has come to light that Lalwani alone opened three such companies in Delhi and, overall, seven companies were set up by the accused,” a police official said. “They would target businessmen in several cities. In Ahmedabad, they paid cash initially to New Cloth Market businessmen to build confidence.” Later, they acquired material worth crores on credit and disappeared.
Police sources said that the accused will be taken to several locations to investigate the bogus companies.