Sugar mill ‘owner’ cuts a bitter deal, cheats 11 of 20cr

Ghaziabad: A 40-year-old man was arrested for posing as the owner of a closed sugar factory in Basti and cheating at least 11 scrap dealers of nearly Rs 20 crore on the pretext of selling them the mill’s machinery.
Qumarruddin of Lucknow was caught after a scrap dealer from Hindon Vihar submitted a complaint at Nandgram police station on Aug 14 against the director of Phenil Sugars Ltd for taking Rs 1.5 crore from him as an advance payment for the purchase of mill machinery worth Rs 3 crore.The complainant, Naushad, said the company’s director had shared documents for the company and the mill while striking the deal but did not give him the equipment even after the first tranche of money was paid via RTGS transactions and cash.
Naushad said Qumarruddin refunded Rs 49.5 lakh after a few meetings but refused to return the rest. Instead, Qumarruddin abused and threatened Naushad.
“Qumarruddin was traced through surveillance and local inputs and arrested on Saturday. We have found that the accused has duped several scrap dealers in UP and other states of more than Rs 20 crore using a similar modus operandi,” DCP (City) Rajesh Kumar said.
Police said Qumarruddin is an MBA and owns an office in Hazratganj under a company named G Multi-Trading and Services. He worked in share trading and lost some business during Covid. During the investigation, cops found that Qumarruddin and his wife would pose as directors of Phenil Sugars and approach scrap dealers in Meerut, Basti, Ghaziabad and even Rajasthan. “The couple would say that they had shut the Basti mill and needed money to pay sugarcane farmers, who had supplied them with crops. So far, 11 cases have been registered against Qumarruddin across UP,” the DCP said.