Advertisment

ACT members put alleged conman behind bars

author-image
CIOL Bureau
Updated On
New Update
MUMBAI, INDIA: Members of Aurangabad Channel Traders (ACT) association caught a person, identified as Ajay Aher, red handed. He is accused of issuing fake demand drafts (DD) to dealers for the purchase of laptops and other expensive IT products. In the past, Aher had succeeded in cheating one dealer in the city, and while he was caught, he was doing the same with some other partners as well.

Advertisment


Mahesh Vitekar of Memory Marketing India was the dealer who was instrumental in capturing Aher. He informed, “Aher visited our shop and identified himself as a resident of Gangapur near Aurangabad. He wanted to purchase laptops against a DD worth Rs 66,000 from the Aurangabad District Central Association Bank.
We noticed changes made to the DD and took it to the bank for verification. That's when we learnt that it was a fake DD, that was printed by Aher himself.”

On learning this, Vitekar informed other partners about Aher and then called the police. The cops trapped Aher and kept took him in remand.



This was reportedly the second incident of a similar nature in the region. The first time around, Aher tried to pull this stunt on Accord Computers who found it suspicious and informed other dealers to beware of this modus operandi.

Rohit Maria of Accord Computers said, “We informed other members of the association about Aher after he failed to trap us with the fake DD scam.”



According to other dealers, Aher and two of his other associates had been trying this in the Aurangabad market since November 2007. But they failed in their attempt to buy two laptops from Accord Computers against a fake DD worth Rs 89,000.

“We found him suspicious and told him that no product could be delivered till the DD was cleared by the bank. After that he didn’t turn up, which reaffirmed our doubts and I sent a mail to all ACT members cautioning them about the incident,” said Maria.



Later, Aher didn’t appear in the area for six months due to which dealers in the region forgot about the incident. But later he played the same game with Olympus Computers.

“Olympus Computers is one of the ACT members that forgot about the mail and delivered two laptops to the same person by receiving a DD from him. They remembered the fraud only when they submitted the DD for clearance,” stated Sanjay Agarwal, CEO, Mainframe Computers on behalf of Sunil Agarwal of Olympus Computers.



Police has started investigations against Aher and have reportedly acquired some stolen materials from him.
tech-news