Hyderabad (Telangana) : The activities of gangs who illegally transport heavy vehicles to African countries and sell them there at high prices are surfacing one by one in Telangana. Cases of fraudsters buying excavators with loans from banks and financial institutions and taking them abroad on ships to sell them at twice the price are now getting exposed.
A huge network is behind this and up to 500 heavy vehicles have been exported from Telangana already. The fraud is estimated to be Rs 200 Cr to Rs 300 Cr, sources said. This gang has spread its activities to other States. The Hyderabad CCS police began a probe following a complaint filed by a private finance company. In this investigation, money laundering and FEMA violations are likely to be exposed.
These gangs are hiring special brokers to trap persons having high Cibil scores to take heavy vehicle loans in their names. They convince others that they got a big contract but they could not get a loan because their credit score was low. So they make their victims believe that the heavy vehicles would be registered in their names and offer them up to Rs 5 lakh as advance towards EMIs.
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In fact, showroom managers install GPS devices for heavy vehicles purchased with finance loans. But these gangs were removing these devices within three to four hours of taking delivery of these vehicles from the showroom. After that, they were creating bogus invoices. This was being done to take them abroad as the original invoice contains 'finance hypothecation'.
Later, the vehicles would be moved to Mumbai and Chennai ports. Bogus invoices would be shown to customs authorities and shipped to African countries. There is a huge demand for these vehicles in African countries and the price is also high there compared to here. They are mostly used in road construction and mining activities there.
Excavators fetch around Rs 55-60 lakhs here as against Rs 1.3 crores in African countries. These gangs were earning illegal money up to Rs 20-30 lakhs on each vehicle after expenses incurred for down payments, GST, preparation of bogus invoices, shipment, etc. They were receiving payments from Africa through hawala, the sources said. Whether this network consists of influential persons, showroom managers or customs officials would be known only after the conclusion of the investigation.
