Bollywood actress Sonam Kapoor’s in-laws have been duped by cyber criminals 27 crore, the Faridabad police said on Friday after busting the gang of fraudsters.
Harish Ahuja’s Faridabad based firm Shahi Export Factory deals in export and import of various products. In its operations, the company enjoys certain incentives under the State and Central Levy and Rebate of Taxes (ROSCTL) scheme. The scheme allows companies to get exemption from excise duty and customs duty and these RoSCTL licenses are similar to digital coupons of several lakh rupees which entitle the firm to get exemption in taxes and duties.
Police said that the fraudsters were highly sophisticated and had obtained 154 RoSCTL 27.61 crore of Ahuja’s company and was encashing them by transferring them to fake and bogus firms opened by him.
The police said that they used to get rid of these coupons by transferring them to other firms. He told that the fraudsters were cheating and extorting them on the basis of forged digital signature certificates of Harish Ahuja, the father-in-law of Kapoor.
The police had been investigating the case for eight months on the complaint of Ahuja’s company and it was kept secret to keep an eye on the activities of the fraudsters.
Recently, the Faridabad Police has arrested a total of nine accused from different places of the country including Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Karnataka. The last arrest was made on December 23 last year, police said, adding that some of the accused include former clerks and employees of the Directorate General of Foreign Trade, who are well versed in the technicalities and workings of DGFT.
The arrested accused have been identified by the DCP as Manoj Rana, Manish Kumar, Praveen Kumar, Lalit Kumar Jain and Manish Kumar Moga, residents of Delhi, besides Bhushan Kishan Thakur of Mumbai and Suresh Kumar Jain of Chennai. Two others arrested in the scam have been identified as Ganesh Parashuram of Raichur in Karnataka, Rahul Raghunath of Raigad and Santosh Sitaram of Pune.
Aggarwal said that the accused Manoj Rana, Manish Kumar, Praveen Kumar and Manish Kumar Moga had earlier worked as clerks in DGFT and were well versed in the working of the directorate. They used to fraudulently secure the codes of large EXIM firms and check their records, find the funds in their accounts as well as the value of the RoSCTL coupons they were entitled to, before targeting them. .
(with inputs from PTI)
Never miss a story! Stay connected and informed with Mint.
download
Our App Now!!