Navi Mumbai man held for vehicle hire fraud; 23 cars worth Rs 72.90 lakh seized

THANE: Twenty-three cars worth Rs 72.90 lakh were recovered from a man accused of cheating a vehicle hire firm, Navi Mumbai police said on Monday.
Police commissioner Bipin Kumar Singh said Kharghar resident Sandeep Raghu Shetty was nabbed from Mumbai airport by a team from Vashi police station as he was about to flee to Dubai.
"He started a self-drive car firm and took vehicles on rent, but stopped making payments after a couple of months.He took 25 cars from a firm based in Chennai and fraudulently mortgaged them for around Rs 2 lakh each with people. A case was lodged against Shetty based on the complaint of this firm," Singh told reporters.
"We recovered 23 mortgaged cars from Bhiwandi, Taloja, Padgha, Badlapur, Jalgaon as well as Hyderabad in Telangana. He has diverted 25 more cars using a similar modus operandi and this is being probed," the commissioner informed.