Conman cheats 20 dealers in Mumbai

IT dealers in Mumbai are hunting for alleged conman Santosh operating under

the banner of Blue Chip Computers for the last few months. According to sources,

this person has cheated over 20 dealers by issuing dud cheques against purchase

of IT hardware. Santosh is now not traceable at his premises or at home.

Dealers inform that Santosh used a smart modus operandi after doing a

thorough homework of the market. He limited himself to small amount of purchases

ranging from Rs 12,000 to Rs 75,000 after identifying the capacity of different

dealers.

According to affected dealers, Santosh has been giving reference of some

known dealers in the market, with whom he has maintained a clean business. Some

have even alleged that these dealers must be hand-in-glove with Santosh who is

not operating alone. According to sources, Santosh buys goods from them and

allegedly sells them at a lower rate to some fixed resellers like Ramdev

Computers, Swastik, and so on. These names were used for giving reference as

well. The matter came to light when dealers found that some products were being

sold in the market at a much lower price than the regular price.

Sources also inform that a group of people were cheating traders in the

automobile spares and accessories business some time back. "It is this same

group conning the IT traders," says a dealer, adding, "Chances are

that around 15 young boys in the age group of 20-25 years are involved."

Bimal Jhevari of Hardtrac Computers, who is one of the affected dealers,

alongwith a group of resellers has even approached the police, "But nothing

has been done so far," says Bimal. Some of the other prominent dealers

conned by Santosh are Data Force, Venus,  Active Infocom, Midage Computers,

RealTime and DK International.

NELSON JOHNY



MUMBAI