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Crime Branch cracks 1-cr. fraud

BHUBANESWAR: Crime Branch of Orissa police here on Saturday claimed to have unravelled a fraud involving about Rs 1 crore by arresting three persons who allegedly cheated companies based in Australia and Luxemburg.

The three persons, Gangadhar Narayan Kar, his wife Sunanda Kar and Gobardhan Sahu, were produced before the court of Sub-Divisional Judicial Magistrate, Khurda, who rejected their bail pleas and remanded them to 14 days of jail custody.

Addressing media persons here, Inspector General of Police (Crime Branch) Bijay Sharma said Gangadhar, the mastermind of the crime, mopped up Rs 50 lakhs from two companies based in Australia and Luxemburg by supplying substandard cashew kernels.

Mr. Sharma said while the Australian Company, Taj Food Sales Private Limited, had filed the complaint with Khandagiri police of the city in 2006, Embassy of Luxemburg at New Delhi had requested the State Government to undertake investigation into the fraud this year.

Crime Branch had frozen four bank accounts and questioned three accused along with Gangadhar’s son.

"While Gangadhar exported 15870 kg cashew nuts against promised 66500 US dollar to Australian company, 15876 kg cashew materials against identical payment was supplied to the Luxemburg Company, Irreco Trading International," he said.

When consignment of cashew kernels reached Port of Revenna in Italy, the quality of products was found to be of inferior.

"Surveyer at the Italian port found consignment containing 40 per cent cashew kernels as rotten, 50 per cent rancidity, 80 per cent discoloured, 25 per cent withered, 20 per cent broken and 20 per cent of the load was infected by insects," the IG Crime Branch said.

The modus operendi surprised the investigators. "The accused persons forged all documents including quality certificate, company names and even correspondence names. During the investigation, we found that the accused also produced a fake certificate of Visakhapatnam Chamber of Commerce to show his credibility," Mr. Sharma said.

The crime branch had carried out majority of investigation in the cyber-driven offence, which came to the surface last year, through emails. "All the payments were made against proof of delivery.

This helped these accused to draw the money even before it was tested in other countries," he said.

The IG Crime Branch said, "we have also detected another payment of 27000 US dollars to Gangadhar during checking of his bank accounts. Details of this transaction would be made public soon."

Another case was already pending against Gangadhar in a local court since 2001 for allegedly siphoning off 82700 US dollars (approximately Rs 38 lakhs) from an American company.

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