7 from Indore booked for cheating BPCL of over Rs 5 crore

Indore: Seven persons from Indore were booked for cheating Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) of approximately Rs 5.72 crore. The seven are among 1,093 people from across the country accused of cheating BPCL of nearly Rs 129.55 crore over the past few years.DSP Umakant Choudhary said that the matter came to light after a BPCL official approached the police station and submitted a written application on March 31, highlighting forgery in BPCL's digital payment system and alleged manipulation in transactions routed through a payment gateway."BPCL's regional manager submitted a written complaint on March 31 stating forgery in their payment system. Seven individuals from Indore were continuously procuring petrol and diesel since 2023 through the fleet cards issued by the company without having the payment debited. Even after notices were issued by BPCL, they did not make the payment, and fraud of approximately Rs 5.72 crore has been committed," he said, adding that based on the complaint, a case has been registered against seven people for cheating and dishonesty under the IPC at Kshipra police station.BPCL had launched a scheme in 2021 under which, through its loyalty application, it issued cards to transporters (Business-to-Business, B2B) and individuals (Business-to-Customer, B2C). In this, certain details were filled, and BPCL used to debit payments directly from their bank accounts through Razorpay payment gateway. Since 2023, the accused were taking petrol and diesel using these cards, but the payment that was supposed to be debited from their bank accounts was not processed."BPCL officials stated in the complaint that when it received this information from the Razorpay team, it conducted an investigation and found that 1,093 such cardholders across the country had committed similar fraud, causing a loss of Rs 129.55 crore to the company. Out of this, seven individuals from Indore committed fraud of Rs 5.72 crore, against whom a case has been registered," DSP Choudhary said.The seven accused are Vishal Singh, Shashi Singh, Dalwar Singh, Baljindar Singh, Vahid Khan, Narendra Singh Basu and Balveer Singh.