Businessman tries to defraud insurance firm, held

SURAT: Crime branch sleuths of city police arrested three persons on Saturday from Parle Point for registering a fabricated complaint of Rs 8 crore theft in West Bardhaman district of West Bengal earlier this month. One of the accused is a leading businessman who is into women's readymade garments.
The accused, a millionaire businessman, planned to claim insurance money to pay off debt of Rs10 crore for which he had hired two men to steal his truck about which he lodged the complaint in West Bengal. He got his goods insured while under transportation for Rs20 crore. The accused told police that he was facing financial problems after the announcement of demonetization and implementation of GST by the Central Government.

Police arrested Rajesh Jain (45), a resident of City Light; Abhishek alias Chintu Singh (20), a native of Nalanda in Bihar; and Vipul alias Lucky Vishwarma (19), a native of Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh, for the fraud. Jain, owner of Lajo, a leading lahenga choli brand, is a native of Udaipur in Rajasthan. The other two accused, currently living in Pandesara in the city, came in contact with Jain while working for him.

Jain has many showrooms across the city for his readymade women's products and a widespread distribution network across the country. He also exports products to different countries.

Jain had an order of garment export to Mauritius for which he was supposed to send products to his WB storage. But he sent salt and waste cloth pieces in the truck and got it stolen by the two from Andal police station area in West Bardhaman district. Later, the two accused dumped the material in the truck in a warehouse behind Beur Central Jail in Patna and abandoned the vehicle near Ara railway station of Bihar. Later, they informed Jain, who lodged the complaint at Andal police station on January 6.

"We first got information about the two associates of Jain and nabbed them. They spilled the beans that it was not theft but a fraud," said M S Trivedi, police sub-inspector, crime branch. Jain had promised Rs50,000 each to the two accused for the work. The three accused will be handed over to WB police for further investigation.