Gujarat: Coal company conned of Rs 1.2 crore

AHMEDABAD: Navrangpura Police has registered a complaint of cheating and breach of trust against two men who bought coal worth Rs 1.29 crore but did not pay Rs 1.19 crore.
The complaint of Jignesh Patel, 39, a resident of Ghodasar, was filed on Friday. He said that he is the marketing general manager of Agarwal Coal Corporation Private Limited which sells imported coal.
Patel said his company’s HQ is in Madhya Pradesh.He said that the company has a set procedure for dealing with customers which involves KYC verification.
Patel said that his office received a call from a man identifying himself as Anand Patel. Anand claimed to be the proprietor of a company called Powertech Industries. Anand said that he had a small power plant and a paper mill in Halvad in Morbi district and asked for the rate of coal and the trucking charges.
Patel said that Anand was asked to furnish all the documents and a declaration in line with the requirements of Patel’s company. Anand did so, passing all the checks, and placed an order for 500 metric tonnes of imported coal. The rate was agreed at Rs 6,750 per tonne.
Four trucks were sent to Morbi from Navlakhi and the material was received by someone going by the name of Avinash Tiwari. On April 2, another four trucks carrying 163 tonnes of coal were sent. In all 486.44 tonnes of coal was sent. Anand’s associate who called himself Ajay Modi came to Patel’s office in Navrangpura and handed over two cheques. Modi wanted the coal to be sent from Kandla instead of Navlakhi as transportation was proving to be costly.
On March 7 and March 10, Modi placed orders for 500 tonnes of coal which was delivered. Modi returned to Patel’s office and gave more cheques. But when the cheques were presented for clearance, they were blocked by the stop-payment instruction.
Modi then gave two cheques of other banks, which bounced. Patel told police when he made inquiries, he learnt that the company was bogus. Somehow Anand and Modi had bypassed the safety protocols of Patel’s company.
Patel had given an application of complaint on June 5 and the complaint was filed on Friday.