Father-son duo who duped people with space suits held
New Delhi, May 9: A father and son, who claimed that they were preparing equipment to sell to NASA for Rs 37,500 crore, have been arrested by Delhi Police — after a businessman complained that he had been duped of Rs 1.43 crore by them.
The accused would tell investors that they were building a device called the ‘rice puller’, which could be used to generate “electricity from thunderbolts”, and that they would sell it to NASA via the DRDO once it was ready.
Police said that they had duped at least 30 people from Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. JCP (Crime Branch) Alok Kumar identified the arrested accused as Virender Mohan Brar (56) and his son Nitin Mohan Brar (30).
Police said they had recovered what the accused claimed were “copper plates, anti-radiation suits, anti-radiation chemical stickers” as well as a laptop, printer, foreign cheque books, fake ID cards and an Audi car from their possession.
“A few years ago, the complainant, Narender Saini, met Virender, who told him his company would sell the ‘rice puller’ to NASA after building it. He said he needed seed money for this purpose,” JCP Kumar said.
Police said Virender told Saini that he would be paid Rs 10 crore as soon as tests for the equipment were successful. “Saini entered into an MoU with Virender and paid Rs 87.2 lakh for ‘anti-radiation suits’, which the accused said would be worn by scientists during testing. They said tests were scheduled in Hapur, but could not be held as the place was ‘not conducive’. They also took him to an office in East of Kailash to convince him that he was not being conned,” he said.
The accused also “roped in fake actors posing as DRDO officials, after giving them a salary of Rs 20,000, just to convince Saini about the authenticity of the equipment,” DCP Bhisham Singh said, adding that the father-son duo were also arrested, and released on bail, earlier.
“They were earlier arrested when they allegedly sold snakes in Dehradun for Rs 17 lakh by claiming that the reptiles were rare and had medicinal properties. They were also arrested from Kurukshetra in a separate case, but resumed duping people once they came out,” an official said.
Police said they stayed in the posh Meera Bagh area at a rent of Rs 60,000 per month. “They travelled in luxury cars with two personal security officers who carried weapons, at a salary of Rs 35,000. They wore branded clothes and sported expensive watches. With their confidence and fluent English, most people would not suspect them,” an officer said, adding that they ran seven offices in Delhi.
“Virender ran a motor workshop in the 1990s and Nitin assisted him. But they faced financial losses and started duping people on the pretext of selling rare and antique objects such as magic mirror, rice puller and two-headed snakes,” Kumar said. “The arrest was made by a team of inspector Sunil Jain and ACP Aditya Gautam.”
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ED searches 'preferred' vendors of Amazon, Flipkart in FEMA probe
New Delhi, Nov 7: The Enforcement Directorate Thursday conducted searches against some of the "main vendors" operating on platforms of e-commerce giants Amazon and Flipkart as part of a foreign direct investment "violation" investigation, official sources said.
A total of 19 premises of these "preferred" vendors located in Delhi, Gurugram and Panchkula (Haryana), Hyderabad (Telangana) and Bengaluru (Karnataka) were covered as part of the action, the sources said.
It is learnt that the ED inspected documents and took copies of some from the premises of about six such vendors who were not named.
The sources said a probe has been initiated by the federal agency under the provisions of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) after it received several complaints against the two large e-commerce companies where it is alleged that they were "violating India's FDI (foreign direct investment) rules by directly or indirectly influencing the sale price of goods or services and not providing level playing field for all the vendors".
There was no immediate response from the two e-commerce companies.
The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) welcomed the ED action.
"The CAIT, along with several other trade bodies, has been raising these issues for the past few years. I welcome the Enforcement Directorate's actions as a step in the right direction," CAIT secretary general and BJP MP from Delhi Praveen Khandelwal said in a statement.
He claimed that the Competition Commission of India (CCI) had also issued "penalty notices" to Amazon and Flipkart, and their "preferred" sellers, for "engaging" in anti-competitive practices that have adversely affected small traders and 'kirana' (grocery) stores.
As per existing rules, 100 per cent FDI is allowed through automatic route in the marketplace model of e-commerce. But overseas investment is not permitted in an inventory-based model.
In the market place model, e-commerce entities can only provide a platform for third-party sellers and they cannot own the inventory. They also cannot directly or indirectly influence the price of the goods.
It has been reported in the past that the CCI, which works to ensure fair business practices across sectors in the marketplace, is already looking into alleged anti-competitive ways of e-commerce companies.
The CAIT and mainline mobile retailers' association AIMRA had also petitioned the CCI sometime back seeking immediate suspension of operations of Flipkart and Amazon as they alleged that the companies engaged in predatory pricing and were burning cash to offer heavy discounts on products .
These practices, in turn, are creating a grey market of mobile phones, causing losses to the exchequer "as players in the grey market evade taxes", they had said.
Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal had recently flagged the same concerns as he had questioned Amazon's announcement of USD 1 billion investment in India, saying the US retailer was not doing any great service to the Indian economy but filling up for the losses it had suffered in the country.
He had said in August that their huge losses in India "smells of predatory pricing", which is not good for the country as it impacts crores of small retailers.
Goyal said e-commerce companies were eating into the small retailers' high-value, high-margin products that are the only items through which the mom-and-pop stores survive.
The minister had said that with the fast-growing online retailing in the country, "are we going to cause huge social disruption with this massive growth of e-commerce".
Khandelwal said that the CAIT has urged the CCI and the ED to protect the businesses of small traders.
"In the new Bharat, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi Ji, no one is above the law. I am hopeful that now the law will take its rightful course and protect the livelihoods of small shopkeepers.
"This government is committed to ensuring that no entity can harm the trading community. In response to multiple complaints filed by the trading community regarding FDI violations and the anti-competitive practices of quick-commerce companies such as Blinkit, Swiggy, and Zepto, we urge both the CCI and the ED to take swift action and prevent any further, irreparable damage to the businesses of small traders," he said in the statement.
