Fraud on OLX: ‘Sell & steal’ gang held in Kochi

KOCHI

: Three youngsters were arrested by

Palarivattom

police for cheating people through a leading online marketplace by selling the same car to two persons and stealing it back both times. The arrested were identified as Iqbal (24),

Mohammed Fahil

(26) and Shyam Mohan (23) all hailing from

Malappuram

.

Talking to the mediapersons in Palarivattom, city police deputy commissioner (law and order) T U Kuriakose said after selling a car to a customer through OLX, they tracked it using a GPS tracker pre-installed in it and stole it using duplicate keys. They committed the fraud by placing an ad to sell a premium sedan at a price cheaper than the market rate.

The case was registered based on a complaint filed by a resident of Nedumangadu in Thiruvananthapuram, who fell prey to the fraud by buying the car from the accused in Kozhikode on February 8. Once he left with the car, the accused followed the buyer using the GPS tracker and stole the vehicle from the parking area of a restaurant in Palarivattom when the buyer stopped to have dinner. The buyer approached Palarivattom police and raised the suspicion that the youths who sold the car could be behind the theft. The police later tracked the accused to Bengaluru with the help of CCTV footage and inputs from cyber police. The police said that no documents were signed or exchanged with the victim as part of the deal.

On questioning it was found that using the same modus operandi, the accused had cheated a resident of Palluruthy in January who had rented the car for three months. The car was stolen from his porch shortly after the deal.

In both cases, the victims were swindled out of Rs 1.40 lakh each. The police said the accused were yet to fully pay for the car they used for cheating. A ciomplaint regarding this in under the consideration of Palakkad. The police also said two of the accused have another case registered against them for allegedly cheating a man and swindled Rs 6 lakh after promising him a luxury car.


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