This story is from January 17, 2021

Fake vehicles loan racket busted in Surat

Police busted a gang that adopted an unusual method of borrowing loans and cheating a bank for Rs 8.64 crore on used heavy vehicles that do not exist. They booked 20 accused on Friday for the fraud, while five were arrested on Saturday. The five accused have been remanded to police custody till January 22.
Fake vehicles loan racket busted in Surat
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SURAT: Police busted a gang that adopted an unusual method of borrowing loans and cheating a bank for Rs 8.64 crore on used heavy vehicles that do not exist. They booked 20 accused on Friday for the fraud, while five were arrested on Saturday. The five accused have been remanded to police custody till January 22.
Cops arrested Irshad Pathan, his brother Imran, Kapil Kothiya, Shailesh Jadwani and Mukesh Sojitra who along with the 15 others were booked for forgery, cheating and criminal breach of trust with Yes Bank.
The complaint was lodged by Sumit Bhosle, risk containment manager of Yes Bank. The fraud was carried out during 2016 and 2018.
However, the bank recently unearthed the scam when the accused started defaulting on repayment of loan. The bank later carried out an investigation and found that it is a well-planned fraud racket.
Investigation so far have revealed that the accused had prepared forged papers of purchase of trucks and buses of TATA and Ashok Leyland companies. They also prepared forged general insurance papers for these vehicles and got them registered in Arunachal Pradesh (AP) and Nagaland regional transport offices.
“In the preliminary investigation we found that it is not required to take the vehicle physically to the RTO for registration. Most of the registration process is done online and the fraudsters took advantage of it,” said a crime branch official.
After generating a vehicle registration certificate (RC) on forged papers the accused used it to show a resale in Gujarat. “Police found that a man from Botad in Saurashtra arranged the RC from Nagaland and AP while Irshad used to identify individuals who would be interested in borrowing the loan on forged papers,” said an officer.

The RC and other forged papers were sold for around Rs 3 lakh to the loan borrower and using those papers other accused borrowed used vehicle loans of Rs 10 to 20 lakh. Irshad had borrowed loans for 10 buses while the other accused had borrowed loans for one vehicle each.
“It is an important detection by police and we took swift actions to nab the accused after receiving information. They are involved in siphoning off public money and police will deal with them strictly,” city police commissioner Ajay Tomar told TOI.
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About the Author
Yagnesh Bharat Mehta

Yagnesh Mehta is principal correspondent at The Times of India, Surat and reports on crime, politics and health related issues. He has reported on major events that affected Surat in recent years, like the floods in 2006 and bird flu outbreak in Navapur in 2005. He has also covered child labour issues in industries of Surat and on RTI. Painting and rock-climbing are his favourite leisure activities.

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